Night Of The 4th Of May

(album: Orange - 1972)

And the days they flew by
And the leaves fell from the trees
And many times you came around
And many times you slept with me
And every time that we made love
You wrote it down in your diary
Lady of ladies

But I would always say to you
Don't ask about tomorrow
Give what you have, take what you need
Your time is only now
Don't try to tie me down to promises
I live for today, today is all there is
And freedom seems to be everything to me

I took you down to a party
On the night of the 4th of May
And a strange and growing restlessness
Had hung in the air all day
The need to try and tear down
And destroy all that we'd made
Lady of ladies

You whispered in my ear and asked me
If I fancied her
You told me that he'd phoned you
When I was in America
Daring each other just to say okay
Swap for tonight, didn't I always say
That freedom seems to be everything to me

And she came and she sat down beside me
And you found an excuse to go downstairs
And she smiled and made
The kind of conversation that you do
And later on she said
'My last train has gone
Oh I wonder if you could run me home'

And I found vou in the hallway and told you
That was all that I would do
Just run her home and it's through
Oh I thought you knew
But I must confess
I laid my head on her breast
And it seemed so hard
To pull it away

Her hand touched my hand
And her eyes were offering the rest
If it wasn't for you, oh I would have stayed
But I came back home through the morning
To find you lying awake
And I knew all at once what you'd done
And I heard myself say
"Why did you have to sleep with him
Anyone else Wouldn't have mattered
Half
As much as him"

I don't want to touch you
Somehow you feel unclean
I just wish that you
Were five hundred miles away from me
Don't talk at all, don't start to cry
Just pack up your things
Lady of ladies

And though I'd always told myself
That when our time ended
I'd walk away with no regrets
And no attempts to stay
Somehow it doesn't seem to be that way
I find I'm needing every word you say
This freedom seems to be everything to me

And you went up to Cambridge
And you stayed in your brother's room
And you wrote me a letter and sent it the same afternoon
You said "I just want to hurt myself
Oh I need you so badly now"

And you told me
"Without you there seems to be no horizon at all
Just no crack in the wall
No place lower to fall

"Hey don't leave me, don't leave me
The shapelessness of the dawn
Floods above and beneath me,
I can't go on"

And I had to walk right into the trap
And I had to say please come back
Though I felt all the while
My resistance slipping away

Why did I have to fall for you
Anyone else
Wouldn't have hurt me
Half
As much as you