"Forgive Her Anything"

   
Oh, a TV went off like three day old milk
That shook this town down better than most
And it always was less of an idea and more of a boast
Oh, you're burning in the bloom of life
Till you're powder in the grave
Or you're pounding in the counter begging for more
Till you evaporate
You'd forgive her anything
If you look like you, my pretty miss
I wonder where you are tonight
And this place becomes pitiless?

Oh, I couldn't sleep, but I can't complain
Oh, this won't hurt a bit, oh, this won't hurt again
When the roof comes down and the walls move in
Oh, he didn't know it could feel like that
And your face turned away and the day turned black
And the rain fell like a curtain
Oh, it's my turn to begin
To forgive her anything

You'd forgive her anything
If you knew what I know
You'd forgive her anything
So where did all my pride go?

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

Oh, oh, oh, oh, you'd forgive her anything
If you knew what I know
You'd forgive her anything
So where did all my pride go?

"Baby's Got A Brand New Hairdo"

   
Baby's got a brand new hairdo, but doesn't she look so nice?
She said everything that she cares to, she's saying it not once but twice
She said it doesn't matter unless I say it matters
Well, I don't care about all that modern jazz
The girl that used to have it, and the girl I still have
She's the girl that used to have it and the girl I still have
Baby's got a brand new hairdo, and doesn't she look so fine?
She said everything that she used to
Except she's picking your heart, not mine
She said "it doesn't matter unless I say it matters"
[?]
I don't care about all that modern jazz
The girl that used to have it, and girl I still have
She's the girl that used to have it, and the girl I still have

Baby's got a brand new hairdo, and doesn't she look so good?
She looks like Billy Boy Arnold, said I wish you would
I wish you would

Baby's got a brand new hairdo, I wonder what's left inside
She used to [?] at med school, before she learned how to be snide
She walks in the place and everybody scatters
I don't care about all the modern girls
She's the girl that I used to have and the girl I still have
She the, she the....

"American Without Tears #2 (Twilight Version)"

   
December 1965 in Caracas
When Arnie LaFlamme(?) took his piece of the pie
When he packed up the casino chips, the IOU and the abacus
And switched off the jukebox in a "A Fool Such as I"
He was a leg man who was open to offers
But he couldn't get her off his mind as he passed the tourist office
and as he entertained himself singing just like Sammy Davis Junior
He toyed with a trip to Miami

For money like that
he could have sweet talk in her ear
Now they don't speak any English
Just American without tears

It was an idea that he dandled on his knee
and nursed it like his coffee cup
when he couldn't find any other way
It always seemed to come to him
while the day was dipping down
and sun was like a light bulb
being swallowed by a clown

He took her for everything
He took her for his only one
He took her out of Coventry and over to Idaho
But the war wound that he carried home
wasn't really visible
When the bullets were forgotton
she lived dowdy, down, and miserable

And she seemed to be crying for year after year
and says, "You don't speak any English
Just American between tears."

"Arnie" she said to me, "Will you turn down the radio.
You haven't slept a wink since we came to Havana
When're you gonna get the strength to go over to Florida?
All you ever listen to is 'The Voice of America'."

It was the story of a young English poppet
Who took up with a soldier boy
And thought she would profit
Just like me she found out what true love is about
Anyway she's in New Orleans It would never work out

Oh she seemed to be crying for year after year
Now you don't speak any English
Just American between tears
Just American without tears

For you seem to be crying for year after year
Now you don't speak any English
Just American without tears
Just American without tears

"A Town Called Big Nothing (Really Big Nothing)"

   
Big nothing.
He stood in the road outside of town
With a broken clockwork toy in his hand.
A graveyard for childish dreams in his palm
A broken lifeline.

Big nothing.

The mechanical amusement sputtered to life in his fist.
As he clenched, it whirred and died again.
It was a cowboy who drew his gun,
but the pistol was welded to the holster
by age and careless children,
So it struggled and strained
and it unwound its own spring.

Big nothing.

He didn't need tattoos to show where he'd been
And who he'd loved.
It was the same thing that men had cried for;
That women had dyed their hair for.
The cellophane illusion of a starry sky
Stretched over an open sore.

Big nothing.

He thought about his lost daughter
The way her eyes would alight at the greedy circus barker's blackmail song
How he wanted to smash her skull in when she parroted back,
'Tell mommy; tell poppy; you need this little dolly.'

Big nothing.

Big nothing.

The smoky voice of the petaled girl woke him long enough.
There was too much light in the room, so he unscrewed the bulb.
She took him to bed like an adopted dog.

Big nothing.

She lit sickly incense, as he tried to tell himself
The resemblance were pure and coincidental.
He unleashed his grip on the toy and all it meant to him,
And it wound down forever.

Big nothing.

He woke up in a sweat, the next day.
With her smile still painted on his mouth
He walked out of a town called Big Nothing.

Big nothing. [Repeat until fade]

"... This Town ..."
   

That Charlie Sedarka was a-playing the piano
like he was pawing a dirty book
He bit a hole in his big bottom lip and gave his
very best little boy look
It was a song with a topical verse which I'm
afraid he then proceeded to sing
Something about the moody doomed love of
the Fish-Finger King

[Chorus:]
You're nobody in this town
You're nobody in this crowd
You're nobody till everybody in this town
thinks you're poison,
Got your number knows it must be avoided
You're nobody till everybody in this town
thinks you're a bastard

Mr. Getgood moved up to Self-Made Man Row
Although he swears that he's the salt of the earth
He's so proud of the "kick-me-hard" sign that
they hung on his back at birth
He said "I appreciate beauty, if I have one, then
it's my fault"
"Beauty is on my pillow, beauty is there in
my vault"

[Chorus]

The girl with the eternity rock went down on
her bookie to buy some stock
Now all her signs in the shopping arcades say
"The corporation thief is The New Jesse James"
Her clothes and her attention were scant, her
eyes were everywhere,
Her eyes were like abstinthe [sic]
The little green figures that dance on his screen
say everything you want to hear and nothing
they mean
They made love while she was changing her dress
She wiped him off she wiped him out and then
she made him confess
A little amused by the belief in her power
You must remember this it was the fetish of
the hour

[Chorus]

"Let Him Dangle"
   

Bentley said to Craig "Let him have it Chris"
They still don't know today just what he meant
by this
Craig fired the pistol, but was too young to swing
So the police took Bentley and the very next thing
Let him dangle
Let him dangle
Bentley had surrendered, he was under arrest,
when he gave Chris Craig that fatal request
Craig shot Sidney Miles, he took Bentley's word
The prosecution claimed as they charged them
with murder
Let him dangle
Let him dangle

They say Derek Bentley was easily led
Well what's that to the woman that Sidney
Miles wed
Though guilty was the verdict, and Craig had
shot him dead
The gallows were for Bentley and still she
never said
Let him dangle
Let him dangle

Well it's hard to imagine it's the times that
have changed
When there's a murder in the kitchen that is
brutal and strange
If killing anybody is a terrible crime
Why does this bloodthirsty chorus come round
from time to time
Let him dangle

Not many people thought that Bentley would
hang
But the word never came, the phone never rang
Outside Wandsworth Prison there was horror
and hate
As the hangman shook Bentley's hand to
calculate his weight
Let him dangle

From a welfare state to society murder
Bring "back the noose" is always heard
Whenever those swine are under attack
But it won't make you even
It won't bring him back

Let him dangle
Let him dangle (String him up)

"Deep Dark Truthful Mirror"
   

One day you're going to have to face
A deep dark truthful mirror
And it's going to tell you things that I still love
you too much to say
The sky was just a purple bruise, the ground
was iron
And you fell all around the town until you
looked the same

[Chorus:]
The same eyes, the same lips, the same lie from
your tongue trips
Deep dark, deep dark truthful mirror
Deep dark, deep dark truthful mirror

Now the flagstone streets where the newspaper
shouts ring to the boots of roustabouts
But you're never in any doubt, there's something
happening somewhere

You chase down the road till your fingers bleed
On a fiberglass tumbleweed

You can blow around the town, but it all shuts
down the same

[Chorus]

So you bay for the boy in the tiger-skin trunks
They set him up, set him up on the stool
He falls down, falls down like a drunk
And you drink till you drool
And it's his story you'll flatter
You'll stretch him out like a saint
But the canvas that he splattered will be the
picture that you never paint

[Chorus]

A stripping puppet on a liquid stick gets into it
pretty thick
A butterfly drinks a turtle's tears, but how do
you know he really needs it?

'Cos a butterfly feeds on a dead monkey's hand,
Jesus wept he felt abandoned
You're spellbound baby there's no doubting that
Did you ever see a stare like a Persian cat?

[Chorus]

"Veronica"
   

Is it all in that pretty little head of yours?
What goes on in that place in the dark?
Well I used to know a girl and I would have
sworn that her name was Veronica
Well she used to have a carefree mind of her
own and a delicate look in her eye
These days I'm afraid she's not even sure if her
name is Veronica

[Chorus:]
Do you suppose, that waiting hands on eyes,
Veronica has gone to hide?
And all the time she laughs at those who shout
her name and steal her clothes
Veronica
Veronica

Did the days drag by? Did the favours wane?
Did he roam down the town all the time?
Will you wake from your dream, with a wolf at
the door, reaching out for Veronica
Well it was all of sixty-five years ago
When the world was the street where she lived
And a young man sailed on a ship in the sea
With a picture of Veronica

On the "Empress of India"
And as she closed her eyes upon the world and
picked upon the bones of last week's news
She spoke his name outloud again

[Chorus]

Veronica sits in her favourite chair and she sits
very quiet and still
And they call her a name that they never get
right and if they don't then nobody else will
But she used to have a carefree mind of her
own, with devilish look in her eye
Saying "You can call me anything you like, but
my name is Veronica"

[Chorus]

"God's Comic"
   

I wish you'd known me when I was alive, I was
a funny feller
The crowd would hoot and holler for more
I wore a drunk's red nose for applause
Oh yes I was a comical priest
"With a joke for the flock and a hand up your
fleece"
Drooling the drink and the lipstick and
greasepaint
Down the cardboard front of my dirty dog-collar

[Chorus:]
Now I'm dead, now I'm dead, now I'm dead,
now I'm dead, now I'm dead
And I'm going on to meet my reward
I was scared, I was scared, I was scared, I was
scared
He might of never heard God's Comic

So there he was on a water-bed
Drinking a cola of a mystery brand
Reading an airport novelette, listening to
Andrew Lloyd-Webber's "Requiem"
He said, before it had really begun, "I prefer
the one about my son"
"I've been wading through all this unbelievable
junk and wondering if I should have given
the world to the monkeys"

[Chorus]

I'm going to take a little trip down Paradise's
endless shores
They say that travel broadens the mind, till you
can't get your head out of doors

I'm sitting here on the top of the world
I hang around in the longest night
Until each beast has gone bed and then I say
"God bless" and turn out the light
While you lie in the dark, afraid to breathe and
you beg and you promise
And you bargain and you plead
Sometimes you confuse me with Santa Claus
It's the big white beard I suppose
I'm going up to the pole, where you folks die of cold
I might be gone for a while if you need me

Now I'm dead, now I'm dead, now I'm dead,
now I'm dead, now I'm dead and you're all
going on to meet your reward

Are you scared? Are you scared? Are you scared?
Are you scared?
You might have never heard, but God's comic

"Chewing Gum"
   

With their cardboard hands by their sides,
here's a naked man and lady
And they're yours to cut out and keep
So you can dress them up maybe
They don't know just who they are, or who they're
supposed to be
You can make them happy or sad
Or assume their identity
So here they are in the departure lounge
It's the "Gateway to the East"
She is just another mail-order bride
She doesn't know he's a kinky beast
So he gives her a picture of Maradona and child
She wants to "roll and rock"
As he spills his beer over her, bumps and he
grinds, as he repeats "Bang-Cock"

[Chorus:]
There must be something that is better than this
It starts with a slap and ends up with a kiss
Begins with you bawling and it ends up in tears
Oh my little one, take that chewing gum out of
your ears

She might as well be in the jungle
She might as well be on the moon
He's away on a business trip, in Dusseldorf [sic], but
she's becoming immune
To the lack of glamour and danger in a West-
German city today
The nearest she comes to the "Dynasty" he
promised her
Is a Chinese takeaway

[Chorus]

Though he only taught her three little words, it
doesn't matter if they're dirty or clean
He can only control what they look like
He can never possess what they mean
Now he wants to whisper in her ear
All the shrinking nothingness
But something always comes between them,
I wonder if you can guess

[Chorus]