Talked Too Much, Stayed Too Long

(album: Apart Together - 2020)

Don't wanna be in your club if you'd take me as a member
I'm not even slightly interested in whether I'm remembered
I say ashes to ashes, dust to dust
Gimme a tombstone if you feel you must
Saying "Here lies a clown who wrote some songs
He talked too much and stayed too long"

Back home in Perth I played piano down at Café Piazza
Swallowing second-hand smoke and singing standards by the masters
Learned that every lyric's sacred
That love's everything
And that three drinks make you straighten up
And four get you swinging
'Til my crowds scared the suits away and I'd play my own songs
And then we'd talk too much and stay too long
(Talk too much and stay too long)

Moved to Melbourne with my missus after locking her down
Felt like a very little fishy in a very big town
Barely scraping by on corporate gigs and quaint cabaret
Playing keyboards in a cover band until three in the AM
I was never really suited to them top 40 songs
Cause I talked too much and played too long
Ha!

Don't wanna be in your club if you'd take me as a member
I'm not even slightly interested in whether I'm remembered
I say ashes to ashes, dust to dust
Gimme a tombstone if you feel you must
Saying "Here lies a clown who wrote some songs
He talked too much and stayed too long"

Took my eyeliner to Edinburgh in twenty-oh-five (2005)
Played to 45 paying punters on the opening night
But to my surprise there was a rising demand
For a lovechild of Liberace and Edward Scissorhands
Dude from the papers said that digging me was wrong
He said I talked too much and stayed too long

I've played the Albert Hall and Wembley, I've played basements and bars
I've been to Hollywood and Broadway, met those A-lister stars
I've shared cigarettes with knights, shot tequila with dames
Found I'm more interested in laughter than in hotness and fame
So long as you got irony honey we'll get along
We can talk too much and stay way, way too long

Don't wanna be in your club if you'd take me as a member
I'm not even slightly interested in whether I'm remembered
I say ashes to ashes, dust to dust
Gimme a tombstone if you feel you must
Saying "Here lies a clown who wrote some songs
He talked too much and stayed too long"
You know he talked too much and stayed too long
You know he talked too much and stayed too long

I've been threatened with death and arrested and hell
I went hard at a cardinal who was feeling unwell
I've had them dogwhistling whiners send their dogs after me
I've been a bigot and a faggot, I've been smug and ugly
I'm a long-haired lefty joker and a smoker of bongs
And I talked too much and stayed too long

But fuck that "live fast die young" shit, I plan on getting rickety
Baby I intend to stick around til' all you pricks are sick of me
And when they come to wash my old man balls and feed me mashed banana
They'll find me in the common room playing blues on the piano
Same old three chords and cliched fucking runs
And I'll talk too much and stay too long
And I'll talk too much

Don't wanna be in your club if you'd take me as a member
I'm not even slightly interested in whether I'm remembered
I say ashes to ashes, dust to dust
Gimme a tombstone if you feel you must
Saying "Here lies a clown who wrote some songs
He talked too much and stayed too long"
You know he talked too much and stayed too long
You know he talked too much and stayed too long

Another white motherfucker rambling on
He talked too much and stayed too long