Misplaced childhood

Huddled in the safety of a pseudo silk kimono wearing bracelets of smoke

Naked of understanding

Nicotine smears, long, long dried tears, invisible tears

Safe in my own words, learning from my own words

Cruel joke, cruel joke



Huddled in the safety of a pseudo silk kimono a morning mare rides

In the starless shutters of my eyes

The spirit of a misplaced childhood is rising to speak his mind

To this orphan of heartbreak, disillusioned and scarred

A refugee, refugee

Do you remember chalk hearts melting on a playground wall ?

Do you remember dawn escapes from moon washed college halls ?

Do you remember the cherry blossom in the market square ?

Do you remember I thought it was confetti in our hair ?

By the way didn't I break your heart? 

Please excuse me, I never meant to break your heart

So sorry, I never meant to break your heart

But you broke mine



Kayleigh is it too late to say I'm sorry?

And Kayleigh could we get it together again? 

I just can't go on pretending that it came to a natural end



Kayleigh, oh I never thought I'd miss you

And Kayleigh I thought that we'd always be friends 

We said our love would last forever 

So how did it come to this bitter end?



Do you remember barefoot on the lawn with shooting stars ?

Do you remember loving on the floor in Belsize Park ?

Do you remember dancing in stilettoes in the snow ?

Do you remember you never understood I had to go ? 

By the way, didn't I break your heart?

Please excuse me, I never meant to break your heart 

So sorry, I never meant to break your heart

But you broke mine



Kayleigh I just wanna say I'm sorry

But Kayleigh I'm too scared to pick up the phone 

To hear you've found another lover to patch up our broken home



Kayleigh I'm still trying to write that love song 

Kayleigh it's more important to me now you're gone

Maybe it will prove that we were right 

Or ever prove that I was wrong

I was walking in the park 

Dreaming of a spark

When I heard the sprinklers whisper

Shimmer in the haze of summer lawns 

Then I heard the children singing

They were running through the rainbows 

They were singing a song for you

Well it seemed to be a song for you

The one I wanted to write for you





Lavenders blue, dilly dilly, lavenders green

When I am King, dilly dilly

You will be Queen

A penny for your thoughts my dear

A penny for your thoughts my dear

I.O.U. for your love

I.O.U. for your love



Lavenders green, dilly dilly, lavenders blue

When you love me, dilly dilly, I will love you

A penny for your thoughts my dear

A penny for your thoughts my dear

I.O.U. for your love

I.O.U. for your love



Lavender dreams dilly, dilly lavender true

When you miss me dilly dilly, I did miss you 

A penny for your thoughts my dear 

A penny for your thoughts my dear

I.O.U for your love

I.O.U. for your love

For your love

I) Brief Encounter



A spider wanders aimlessly within the warmth of a shadow

Not the regal creature of border caves

But the poor, misguided, directionless familiar of some obscure Scottish poet



The mist crawls from the canal 

Like some primordial phantom of romance

To curl, under a cascade of neon pollen

While I sit tied to the phone like an expectant father

Your carnation will rot in a vase



II) Lost Weekend



A train sleeps in a siding

The driver guzzles another can of lager 

To wash away the memories of a Friday night down at the club



She was a wallflower at sixteen, she'll be a wallflower at thirty four

Her mother called her beautiful

Her daddy said, "A whore"





III) Blue Angel







IV) Misplaced Rendezvous



 



It's getting late, for scribbling and scratching on the paper

Something's gonna give under this pressure, and the cracks are already beginning to show

It's too late

The weekend career girl never boarded the plane

They said this could never happen again

Oh, so wrong, so wrong



This time it seems to be another misplaced rendezvous

This time, it's looking like another misplaced rendezvous

With you

The parallel of you, you













V) Windswept Thumb



On the outskirts of nowhere

On the ringroad to somewhere

On the verge of indecision

I'll always take the roundabout way

Waiting on the rain

For I was born with a habit, from a sign

The habit of a windswept thumb, and the sign of the rain

Rain on me, rain



It's started raining

I) Wide Boy



 



Wide boys, wide boys, wide boys

Born with hearts of Lothian

Wide boys, wide boys

Born with hearts of Lothian

Wide boys, we were wide boys

Born with hearts of Lothian 

These hearts of Lothian



It's six o'clock in the tower blocks

The stalagmites of culture shock

And the trippers of the light fantastic, bowdown, hoe-down

Spray their pheremones on this perfume uniform



And anarchy smiles in the Royal Mile

And they're waiting on the slyboys, flyboys, wideboys

Rooting, tooting cowboys

Lucky little ladies at the watering holes

They'll score the Friday night goals



I was born with a heart of Lothian

I was born with a heart of Lothian

I was born with a heart of Lothian

I was born with a heart of Lothian 

I was born with a heart of Lothian, with a heart of Lothian 



II) Curtain Call





 





and the man from the magazine 

wants another shot of you all curled up

'cos you look like an actor in a movie shot

but you're feeling like a wino in a parking lot

how did i get in here anyway

do we really need a playback of the show

'cos the wideboys want to head for the watering holes

let's go

...and the man in the mirror had sad eyes....

When the taxis gather in mock Solemnity

Funeral hearses court the death of virginity

Was it paradise lost or paradise found? 

Did we gain respect or were we holding ground? 

You had found true love, or so you believed 

And the wideboys tattooed your hearts upon their sleeves



So when you think it's time to go, when you think it's time to go

Don't be surprised, the heroes never show



And the patter merchants selling false impressions

Tipping eyes at the waitress with American expressions

Tie angels to the bar with sweet Martini's and their charms 

They're lying on every word and every arm

They're turning down their noses to the best lines 

And the cheap wines



And the wideboys

They wear their lovebites for their crimes



So when you think it's time to go, when you think it's time to go

Don't be surprised, the heroes never show

A love song with no validity

Pretend you never meant that much to me

Numb, a Valium child, bored by meaningless collisions

A lonely stretch of headlight, diamonds trapped in black ice

A mirror cracked among the white lines



I just wanted you to be the first one

I just wanted you to be the first one

Ashes are burning, burning

Ashes are burning, burning



A lifestyle with no simplicities

But I'm not asking for your sympathy

Talk, we never could talk, distanced by all that was between us

A lord of the backstage, a creature of language

I'm so far out and I'm too far in



I just wanted you to be the first one

I just wanted you to be the first one

Bridges are burning, burning

Bridges are burning, burning

I) Vocal Under A Bloodlight



Last night you said I was cold, untouchable

A lonely piece of action from another town

I just want to be free, I'm happy to be lonely

Can't you stay away? 

Just leave me alone with my thoughts

Just a runaway, just a runaway, I'm saving myself



II) Passing Strangers



 



Strung out below a necklace of carnival lights

Cold moan, held on the crest of the night

I'm too tired to fight



So now we're passing strangers, at single tables

Still trying to get over, still trying to write love songs for passing strangers

All those passing strangers



And the twinkling lies, all those twinkling lies

Sparkle with the wet ink on the paper



III) Mylo



 



Oh I remember Toronto when Mylo went down

And we sat and we cried on the phone

I never felt so alone

He was the first of our own

Some of us go down in a blaze of obscurity

Some of us go down in a haze of publicity

The price of infamy, the edge of insanity



Another Holiday Inn, another temporary home

And an interviewer threatened me with a microphone

'Talk to me, won't you tell me your stories.'



So I talked about conscience and I talked about pain

And he looked out the window and it started to rain

I thought maybe I've already gone crazy

So I reached for a bottle and he reached for the door

And I picked up the sleeping pills crushed on the floor

Inviting me to a casual obscenity



IV) Perimeter Walk



 



It would be incredible if we could retrace all the times that we lived here

All the collisions

Wasted, I've never been so wasted

I've never been this far out before



Perimeter walk

There's a presence here

I feel could have been ancient, I could have been mystical



There's a presence

A childhood, my childhood

My childhood, childhood

A misplaced childhood

My childhood, a misplaced childhood

Give it back to me, give it back to me

A childhood, that childhood, that childhood, that childhood, that childhood

Oh please give it back to me



V) Threshold



 



I saw a war widow in a launderette

Washing the memories from her husband's clothes

She had medals pinned to a threadbare greatcoat 

A lump in her throat with cemetery eyes



I see convoys curbcrawling West German Autobahns

Trying to pick up a war

They're going to even the score

Oh... I can't take any more

I see black flags on factories

Soup ladies poised on the lips of the poor

I see children with vacant stares, destined for rape in the alleyways

Does anybody care, I can't take any more! 

Should we say goodbye? 

Hey



I see priests, politicians? 

The heroes in black plastic body-bags under nations' flags

I see children pleading with outstretched hands, drenched in napalm, this is no Vietnam



I can't take any more, should we say goodbye

How can we justify?

They call us civilised!

And it was morning 

And I found myself mourning 

for a childhood that I thought had disappeared 

I looked out the window 

And I saw a magpie in the rainbow, the rain had gone

I'm not alone, I turned to the mirror 

I saw you, the child, that once loved 



The child before they broke his heart 

Our heart, the heart that I believed was lost 



Hey you, surprised? More than surprised 

to find the answers to the questions 

Were always in your own eyes 

Do you realize that you give it on back to her?

But that would only be retraced in all the problems that you ever knew 

So untrue 

For she's got to carry on with her life 

and you've got to carry on with yours 



So I see it's me, I can do anything

And still the child 

'Cos the only thing misplaced was direction

And I found direction 

There is no Childhood's End 

There is no Childhood's End 

Cos' you are my childhood friend 

Cos' you are my childhood friend 

Oh lead me on 



Hey you, you've survived 

Now you've arrived 

to be reborn in the shadow of the magpie 

Now you realize, that you've got to get out of here 

You've found the leading light of destiny 

burning in the ashes of your memory 

You want to change the world 

You'd resigned yourself to die a broken rebel 

But that was looking backward 

Now you've found the light 



You, the child that once loved 

The child before they broke his heart 

The heart, the heart that I believed was lost

So it's me I see, I can do anything 

I'm still the child 

'Cos the only thing misplaced was direction, and I found direction 

There is no childhood's end 

There is no childhood's end 

There is no childhood's end 

I am your childhood friend 

Oh.. lead me on

When I hit the streets back in '81

With a heart and a gown and a poet's crown 

I felt barbed wire kisses and icicle tears 

Wearing at me for all these years 

I saw political intrigue, political lies 

Going to wipe those smiles of self-satisfaction from their eyes



I will wear your white feather 

I will wear your white flag 

I will swear I have no nation 

But I'm proud to own my heart 



I will wear your white feather 

I will wear your white flag 

I will swear I have no nation 

But I'm proud to own my heart 

My heart, My heart 

This is my heart 



We don't need your uniforms 

We have no disguise 

Divided we stand, together we rise



We will carry your white feathers 

We will carry your white flags 

We will swear we have no nation 

But we're proud to own our hearts 



We will carry your white feathers 

We will carry your white flags 

We will swear we have no nation 

But we're proud to own our hearts 

Our hearts,

This is my heart