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Goodbye Cruel World

  1. The Only Flame In Town
  2. Home Truth
  3. Room With No Number
  4. Inch By Inch
  5. Worthless Thing
  6. Love Field
  7. I Wanna Be Loved
  8. The Comedians
  9. Joe Porterhouse
  10. Sour Milk-Cow Blues
  11. The Great Unknown
  12. The Deportees Club
  13. Peace In Our Time
  14. Turning The Town Red
  15. Baby It's You
  16. Get Yourself Another Fool
  17. I Hope You're Happy Now
  18. Motel Matches
  19. Sleepless Nights
  20. Deportee
  21. Withered and Died

The Only Flame In Town

I know a girl got my mind in a mess
I never heard her say goodnight and God bless
She's not the only flame in town

And when we're alone we never quarrel
I'm miles away now here's the moral
She's not the only flame in town

She's not the only flame in town
She's got to stop thinking that I'm
carrying this torch around

He struck a match and it lit up her face
We should have struck a match girl
To burn down the whole place
Now you're not the only flame in town

But you blew hot and cold
Turned my heart to a cinder
And with each passing day
You'd be less tender and more tinder
Now you're not the only flame in town

She's not the only flame in town
She's got to stop thinking that I'm
carrying this torch around

Thought I saw your face in the fire
But it's so hard to remember
Even an inferno can cool down to an ember
Now you're not the only flame
You're not the only flame
You're not the only flame in town

Home Truth

I hung up the phone tonight
Just as you said I love you
Once this would have been coincidence
Now these things start to bother me
You still close your eyes when I kiss you
And I close mine too
But we didn't open them again
Quite as wide as we should

This is where the home truth ends
This is where the home truth ends

Does your touch feel the same as it should do
Or is it someone quite similar
Who killed me with kindness last night
Now do I look at all familiar?
But none of these things seem to matter
Since we've grown apart
I'd put back the pieces of what's shattered
But I don't know where to start

This is where the home truth ends
This is where the home truth ends

This is where the home truth ends
And I feel like a clown
It's tearing me up
It's tearing me down

You say which are the lies that you tell me
Well where do I begin?
So I turn on the TV again
And the world comes crashing in
Is it my shirt or my toothpaste
That is whiter than white?
Is it the lies that I tell you
Or the lies that I might?

This is where the home truth ends
This is where the home truth ends

Chorus

Room With No Number

Picture a hotel room
Clothes scattered across the floor
Covers pulled back from the pillow
A sign hung on the door
Two lovers locked up tight
Through the endless days and nights
Hiding something they can't show
Something no-one must know

Chorus
There's a room without a number
While the sign outside says there's
no vacancy as you take your key
They smile at you so understandingly

She cried out in the night
Woke the porter from his sleep
He grinned slyly to himself
As he went to fetch his keys
Look what love has brought them to
This terrible nightmare
His or hers he could not tell
As they were sleeping there

Chorus

And I wish he could be
The man he was before he was me

A girl arrived at first light
And enquired if they'd been seen
And why the numbers ran from twelve
Missing out thirteen
And they said oh my darling
Put it down to superstition
Try to avoid a scandal
And don't arouse suspicion
They re-arranged the furniture
They even papered over the door

There's a room without a number
While the sign outside says there's
no vacancy as you take your key
They smile just so so you know

Chorus

Inch By Inch

You can take a powder
You can take a drink
You can keep the shrink
And the kitchen sink
Write my name in heaven
in invisible ink
I just woke up from dreaming, I think

You can take me over
You can give me a lip
You can take me under
You can give me the slip
Take off everything or tear me off a strip
Like a lady in the chamber
and another in the clip

Chorus
Don't move a muscle baby
Don't even flinch
You can miss me by a mile
Or just inch by inch
Inch by inch
Inch by inch
Inch by inch
You can pull me up again
Inch by inch
Inch by inch
As pulses race
I long to see that look upon your face

You can take me outside
You can take me apart
You can take me upstairs
you can take me to heart
You made me love you when
you thought you were so smart
Don't try to stop me when
you told me to start
Chorus

Worthless Thing

How many times can you jump out of the cupboard
Before someone gets suspicious or someone gets discovered
You can live forever in a split second of fame
Come on down the price is right what's your name
While a crocodile makes good shoes and a dog may change his coat
I can't change what's written on your face tonight and I quote

Chorus
Oh I wish you could see
Quite how much you could mean to me
You worthless thing
If you were ten feet taller and almost handsome
I might pay this king's ransom
You worthless thing

They commit blue murder along Union Avenue
Then they sell you souvenir matches
Nightclubs full of grave robbers from Memphis, Tennessee
And Las Vegas body snatchers
And he's carrying a warning can't you see how his eyes glint
Keep your bloody hands off my life your affectionate fingerprint

Chorus

All the cars and pills and girls who tore his shirt to tatters
Do you know how tall he was 'cos that is all that really matters?
Do you know his mother's last name do you think that he's divine?
You've seen the film you've read the book
you're drinking vintage Elvis Presley wine

Bored out of your tiny mind while life is twice as large
They'll cut her down to size on television
She's available and beautiful, but with more time to devote
They're going to take this cable now and stick it down your throat
So this is an obituary which should be right and fitting
For every clockwork cat and conceivable kitten

Chorus

Love Field

You lie so unfolded
In a love field
With your contempt for any modesty
In a love field

In a love field
In a love field
You yield with your lips still sealed
In a love field
Lost in a sea of imaginary women
Everything you'd want
from the dawn to the dimming

Breath comes sharp and heart beats faster
In a love field
Cold ground for a pillow
Under a blanket of stars
In a love field

In a love field
In a love field
Headlights that startled
This embrace of hours
In a love field

In a crooked house
Where things can be arranged
You think you're different from the rest
But you don't see how you've changed

Under an archway
On a road of white linen
In a love field
Feel the anxious rhythm of a functional stranger
In a love field

In a love field
In a love field
She's so tense but it's never mentioned
In a love field

I Wanna Be Loved

Why must I be so lonely?
When so many people pass me by
I've been waiting for oh so long now
And yet I'm unable to answer why
I can't be made to give up now
Can you find room for me
in your heart somehow?
I wanna be loved
I just wanna be loved

I guess I'm a victim of loneliness
But why should this be my destiny?
A foolish man for a lot of my life
Shouldn't there be someone
Someone for me?
I hope and I pray some happy day
That I'll be around to hear you say
I wanna be loved
I just wanna be loved

The Comedians

I fell under such gentle persuasion
You can't refuse it's like a home from home
Meanwhile in the Motor car kingdom
They're finding that all that glitters is not chrome
The social circle have these cardiac complaints
Their hearts are empty when their hands are full
All these new found fond acquaintances
Turn out to be the red rag to my bull

Chorus
And I'm up while the dawn is breaking
Even though my heart is aching
I should be drinking a toast to absent friends
Instead of these comedians

I've looked into these eyes upon reflection
They've seen the face of love, they've seen a few
What kind of love is this upon inspection
You'll be the last to know who's fooling who

Chorus

Joe Porterhouse

The children sit upon the stairs
High above a valley of tears
Don't let them see you crying that way oh no

Oh no Joe Porterhouse
Is not gone forever
He'll be back another day
Don't let them see you crying that way

Chorus
Please don't wake him let him sleep
It's a moment she can keep
Like an old bus ticket or a photograph
Resting on the mantlepiece
While for the wicked there is no peace
She says it's not his time to go
Why we were nearly lovers years ago
Now what is left for me
Among the broken branches of the family tree

Heart like an anchor
Arms like cable
He stood all alone on an iron turntable
Don't let them see you crying that way oh no

The sun beats down
It's cracking the flags
Boys who should know better
Are stamping out fags
Don't let them see you laughing that way

Chorus

Oh no Joe Porterhouse
Is not gone forever
He'll be back another day
Don't let them see you crying that way

Sour Milk-Cow Blues

You like coffee and you like tea
Much more than you like me
And everybody says watch out yeah
For the sour milk-cow blues
You like your coffee just a little too sweet
Without your sugar life is incomplete
And everybody says watch out yeah
For the sour milk-cow blues

I think about you everyday
Something about you is not the same
Something about the things you say
Sounds like a different woman with a different name
Sour milk-cow blues

You wear a different size and style of shoe
I think that someone must be poisoning you
To replace you with a living double
Get out of my life right now and save them all of the trouble
They changed your complexion and your personality
Somebody's putting ideas in your head
They took the girl of my dreams and left you here instead
Sour milk-cow blues

You take your place in this parade of pleas
You dial a number and they offer relief
All alone with just your own device
They give you something and it isn't advice
To break the hearts of a million listeners
Start out as lovers and you end up as prisoners
Somebody's suffering from the things that you do
Somebody's suffering but you're glad it isn't you
Put your fingertips up to the screen
Repeat after me, wake at the count of three
Now I don't know which is worse
What they're doing to you or what you're doing to me
Sour milk-cow blues

The Great Unknown

They took old Danny Boy for a ride
From the arms of his bride to be
Threw him into the murky waters
By the dog biscuit factory
Quick dry the tears and stifle cheers
As he sinks just like a stone
Footprints set in sentimental cement
Now burden down his bones
Lest we forget
Here lies the Great unknown

My my my Delilah
Who's the butcher that you harbour
Take the rich man to the cleaners
And the strong man to the barber
From her face down to her torso
Sort of gruesome only more so
Hooks and eyes, fingers and thumbs
Ladies and gentlemen here she comes
The Great unknown

Where shall we sing
At a wedding or a wake
Whose name shall we cherish
And for whose sake

Now this year's cannon fodder
Tell the future general's jokes
They were keeping the home fires burning
As we slipped out for a smoke
Though the VIP's sang "Wooden Heart"
The band played "Hearts of Oak"

(Chorus)

And here comes the day I shall perish all alone
Say here lies the Great unknown

The Deportees Club

In the Arrivederci Roma nightclub, bar and grill
Standing in the fibreglass ruins watching time stand still
All your troubles you confess
to another faceless backless dress
Schnapps chianti porter and ouzo
Pernod vodka sambuca I love you so
Deportee

Tatty beauty talking in riddles
Rome burns down everybody's on the fiddle
Two thousand dollars for wife and some class
A thousand years drowned in a chaser glass
How I wish that she was mine
I could have been a King in Six Eight Time
Schnapps chianti porter and ouzo
Pernod vodka sambuca I love you so
Deportee

It's a brittle charm but she's had enough
Still she wrote her number on his paper cuff
You don't know where to start or where to stop
All this pillow talk is nothing more than talking shop

When I came here tonight my pockets were overflowing
They took my return ticket without me even knowing
I pray to the saints and all the martyrs
For the secret life of Frank Sinatra
But none of these things have come to pass
In America the law is a piece of ass
I'm a deportee

Peace In Our Time

Out of the aeroplane stepped Chamberlain with a condemned man's stare
But we all cheered wildly, a photograph was taken,
as he waved a piece of paper in the air
Now the Disco Machine lives in Munich and we are all friends
And I slip on my Italian dancing shoes as the evening descends

And the bells take their toll once again in victory chime
And we can thank God that we've finally got
peace in our time

There's a man going round taking names no
matter who you claim to be
As innocent as babies, a mad dog with rabies,
you're still a part of some conspiracy
Meanwhile there's a light over the ocean
burning brighter than the sun
And a man sits alone in a bar and says "Oh God,
what have we done?"

Chorus

They're lighting a bonfire upon every hilltop in the land
Just another tiny island invaded when he's got
the whole world in his hands
And the Heavyweight Champion fights in the
International Propaganda Star Wars
There's already one spaceman in the White
House what do you want another one for?

Chorus
 

Turning The Town Red

You've been taught that this won't do
They put me in the picture but the film turned blue
A glimpse of you, Turning The Town Red.
A head full of brand new words and a mouth full of shocks
You're a big boy now, with a face to stop clocks.

Turning the Town Red. (x2)

You made your bed, and now you better dream in it.
The word that you once whispered, now you're screamin' it.
Days drip down like bad wallpaper.
Pictures plastered on the ivy creeper between your old toy soldiers
and your mother's sleepers.

Turning the Town Red. (x2)

You made your bed, you better face the consequence.
A black pool opened at my feet into a dream sequence.

Turning the Town Red. Aah. (x4)

You know I heard her call my name
Least, I think that's what she said.
Surely I'm the correlation that's gonna cause her shame
So, what's she doing in my bed?

Turning the Town Red. Aah.
(Repeat.)
 

Baby It's You

(Sha, la, la, la...)
It's not the way you look that touched my heart.
It's not the way you kissed me, baby, that tears me apart.
Many, many nights I tried. I sit alone at home and I cried over you.
What can I do? I can't help myself, cause baby, it's you.

You should hear the things they say about you.
They say you're never, ever, ever, ever gonna be true. Oh.
I don't listen to a word they say. I'm gonna love you any old way.
What can I do? It's true. I can't help myself, cause baby, it's you.

I don't listen to a word they say. I'm gonna love you any old way.
What can I do? It's true. I can't help myself, cause baby, it's you.
Baby, it's you.
 

Get Yourself Another Fool

At last I've awakened to see what you've done.
All I can do is pack up and run.
Now I know the rules. Find yourself another fool.
You said that you loved me. I was yours to command.
Your kind of loving, my heart couldn't stand.
You played me for a fool. Find yourself another fool.
And now, now that we're through, you say you wished you'd be true.
Oh, but deep down in my heart, I know our love could never grow.
And now, now that we're through, you say you wished you'd be true.
Oh, but deep down in my heart, I know our love will never grow.
At last I've awakened to see what you've done.
All I can do is pack up and run.
Now I know the rules. Find yourself another fool.
Now I know the rules. Find yourself another fool.
 

I Hope You're Happy Now

He's a fine figure of a man and handsome too
With his eyes upon the secret places he'd like to undo
Still he knows who knows who and where and how
And I hope you're happy now

He's got all the things you need and some that you will never
But you make him sound like frozen food, his love will last forever
Still he know what you want and what you don't allow
And I hope you're happy now

I hope that you're happy now like you're supposed to be
And I know that this will hurt you more than it hurts me

He's acting innocent and proud still you know what he's after
Like a matador with his pork sword, while we all die of laughter
In his turquoise pajamas and motorcycle hat
I hope you're happy now because you'll soon put pay to that
I knew then what I know now I never loved you anyhow
And I hope you're happy now
 

Motel Matches

Somewhere in the distance I can hear "Who Shot Sam?"
This is my conviction, that I am an innocent man
Though you say I'm unkind
I'm being as nice as I can

Boys everywhere, fumbling with the catches
I struck lucky with motel matches
Falling for you without a second look
Falling out of your open pocketbook
Giving you away like motel matches

I wake with the siren in an emergency
Though your mind is full of love
In your eyes there is a vacancy
And you know what I'll do
When the light outside changes from red to blue

Chorus
 

Sleepless Nights

(Felice and Boudleaux Bryant)

Through the sleepless nights
I cry for you
And wonder who
Is kissing you
Oh, these sleepless nights
Will break my heart in two

Somehow, through the day
I don't give in
I hide the tears
That wait within
Oh, these sleepless nights
Will break my heart again

Why did you go?
Oh, why did you go?
Don't you know, don't you know
I need you?

Through the sleepless nights
I cry for you
And wonder who
Is kissing you
Oh, these sleepless nights
Will break my heart in two
Oh, oh, oh, oh, these sleepless nights
Will break my heart in two
Oh, oh, oh, oh, these sleepless nights
Will break my heart in two
 

Deportee

In the Arrivederci Roma nightclub, bar and grill
Standing in the fiberglass ruins watching time stand still
All your troubles you confess to another faceless, backless dress

Schnapps, chianti, porter and ouzo
Pernod, vodka, sambuca--I love you so
Deportee

There's a tatty beauty talking in riddles
Rome burns down and everybody fiddles
Deportee
But a thousand dollars won't buy you a Yank, you wife, alas
There's a thousand years of history ground in this chaser glass
And how I wish that she was mine
I could have been the King in Six Eight Time
Deportee

Oh, it's a brittle charm, but she's had enough
Still she wrote her name upon his paper cuff
And you don't where to start or where to stop
All this pillow talk is nothing more than finally talking shop

When I came here tonight my pockets were overflowing
They took my return ticket without me even knowing
Well, I pray to the saints and all the martyrs
For the secret life of Frank Sinatra
But none of these things have come to pass
In America the law is a piece of ass
Deportee

So it's Schnapps, chianti, porter and ouzo
Pernod, vodka, sambuca--I love you so
Deportee
Deportee
Poor Deportee
 

Withered and Died

This cruel old country has driven me down, teased me and lied.
I've only sad stories to tell to this town
My dreams have withered and died.
Once I was bending the tops of the trees,
Kind thoughts in my head, kind voices to hear.
Then I took up with a girl from the West.
They'd run and hide, they'd run and hide.
Count one to ten and she's gone like the rest.
My dreams have withered and died.
If I was a butterfly, lived for a day,
I could be free just blowing away.
Silver moon sailor and silver moonshine
On the water so wide, water so wide,
Slip from the bed of a good friend of mine
My dreams have withered and died.
Once I was bending the tops of the trees
Kind thoughts in my head, kind voices to hear.
This cruel country has driven me down, teased me and lied.
Teased me and lied.
I've only sad stories to tell to this town.
My dreams have withered and died. (x3)
 
 
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