The Full English Lyrics

Are you packed? Have you got everything?

I don't want to find little bits of you

Hidden all around the place.

No little bottle in the bathroom with the Active Lipizomes

And finding one of your ratty sports-bra's

Under the sofa in six months time

Would be too much for me to deal with.

 

Don't go. I know, I know we've been all through this

But when push comes to shove it's bloody hard letting go of you.

This isn't light and controlled, like we said it would be,

I'm holding on to you so tight that when the taxi comes

We're gonna have to cut my hands off at the wrist.

 

Who knows, you husband may have fallen under a bus...

Ok, I'm sorry. I'm sure he must be a good chap.

But it seems to me that living your life

Entirely for other people

Is as bad and wrong as living your life

Entirely for yourself...

Yes, you're right, no letters

No cards, no phone calls either 

This thing must end here... 

But suppose he runs off with his blonde twenty-two-year-old secretary

You know what to do, just jump on the plane and come back to me.

Bring the kids, bring that cats, bring the whole damn shooting-match

Your dear old, silver-haired, Lithuanian granny as well.

You'll know where I'll be.

 

What's he say in the film?

'We'll always have Paris'.

Don't cry. You never cry, you told me.

Now is that the same one where she says

'Don't reach for the moon, we have the stars'?

You're right, that was Bette Davis...

Oh Christ, the taxi's here...

 

This is a significant song for me. I wrote it just before starting work on 'Curly's Airships' to test a new writing technique which I wanted to use on the big piece. Basically, this is a straightforward song, with a repeating sequence of chords, but each verse has a different tune. I wrote the lyrics first, without using any rhymes, and the extended melody was written to fit the words. I'm sure this is not an original technique, but it was new for me. I think it worked very well on 'Curly's Airships', and it makes it a lot easier for me to tell stories with words and music. That is the art of 'songstory', and 'songstory' is what I do best of all.

The words 'We'll always have Paris', are said by Humphrey Bogart in 'Casablanca' (1942), while the Bette Davis line, 'Don't reach for the moon, we have the stars', comes from the movie 'Now Voyager' (also 1942, a great year for weepies). Or rather it doesn't. The correct quote is apparently, 'Don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars', but I don't think I'll be losing any sleep over it.

For non-UK listeners
On British TV, 'Active Lipizomes' were a special ingredient in one of those commercials for cosmetics that feature scientists in white coats.