THE TRIUMPH OF
HOPE OVER EXPERIENCE

Waiting for the ghost train, Hounslow Station,
Sun & moon & stars behind grey sky,
The ghosts step one step closer to the pension
& that fortnight by some seaside in July.
Me & my grandad sticking out like sore thumbs,
With him it's double bass, with me, guitar
Passport, tickets & guitar.

Grandad's all bow-tie & dinner jacket,
Umpteen dancers, saxophones, accordeons, banjos, clarinets
Me, I got a spare T-shirt & my sleeveless denim jacket,
No covers, what you see is all you get

But I've got my mobile phone when I get lonely,
He meets his mates aboard the sleeping car,
& they laugh & smoke, play cards & joke the night away,
Me, I read my paperback on the Eurostar,
With my passport, tickets & guitar.

Noni & The Golden Serenaders
Serenaded them from Weimar to Berlin
From Soho's Windmill to Milan's La Scala,
But the Goose-Step Boys were waiting in the wings.

& that was when the clowns stopped being funny.
Nowadays we know the way things are,
& English chanson's not exactly sexy,
But you get your nights like Frankie's Irish Bar,
You get your nights you touch the moon & stars,
With your passport, tickets & guitar.

Having heard zero in a month of Sundays,
Out I go one Broadstairs morning
& there's John the Max & Chas the Dickens
Sitting on a park bench swapping happy endings,
All along the cliffs, houses stagger off, drunks on the morning after,
This side of the sea there's no such sound as silence.

Then there was the sea & the seagulls having breakfast
& the sparrow & the wind singing in my ears
& reading out the names on the benches in their circle of
Litter, lavender & loving memories,

& trying to find words for capturing clouds like drunks on the morning after,
This side of the sea there's no such sound as silence.

Gladys's bench is a little bit broken,
Ann's been drinking Stella Artois,
Alan's bench says “Farewell to sadness”
& Patsy was loved by everyone who knew her,

& Wally & Flo had pizza to go in heavenly love abiding,
This side of the sea there's no such sound as silence.

Someone's been sick by the bench that says
“The joys of today are the memories of tomorrow”

But Ray's already out with his broom & yellow jacket
Sweeping up the dust and binning all the litter,
& looking out to sea, I can see the sea shine gold like the flowers in the circle,

This side of the sea there's no such sound as silence.
See me stagger off, all along the cliffs, drunk on the morning after,
This side of the sea there's no such sound as silence.

It's the last match of the season, here we are in The Beehive,
Do we have another pint of beer, the time's 2.45?
Nothing happens in the first five minutes of each game,
& lately all the other 85 are much the same,

A defence you'd use for goalposts on Sundays down the park,
No midfield & a forward line on loan from Noah's Ark,
So we have another pint of beer & roll up to the ground
Five minutes late, one-nil down,
Life is football.

Then it goes from bad to boring, you thank God there's no third half,
No-one looks like scoring & the keeper knits a scarf
For the guide-dog of the referee, the shop runs out of pies,
No-one's sure how, but we accidentally equalise
Life is football.

Then some twat in combat trousers shouts, without an explanation,
“Cocksucker!” at the away fans — is he offering consolation?

Then the game gets back to normal, your granny could do better.
It's dismal & abysmal & the keeper knits a sweater.
Life is football.

They add insult onto injury time, the whistle doesn't blow,
& they ask us why we drink! I think it's time to go.
There's only so much suffering that's good for any soul,
I just get through the turnstiles when some bastard gets a goal.

Life is football.
It's not like on the telly, but then real life never is…

So you forgot your wallet again, you always do, somehow,
I don't suppose you'll remember when you & me went to The Plough
Some snowdrops turned up early & said “Hey, which way's the spring?”
& we learned the knack of coming back when the swing began to swing.

You did your famous Circus Boy trick with Ted the bear
Whereby you bite him on the nose whilst waving both hands in the air,
Then you outlaughed the afternoon, the wind beneath your wings,
We learned the knack of coming back when the swing began to swing.

& so I pushed the pushchair home into the setting sun,
Thinking how being your father is the best thing I've ever done,

This song can be the camera, man, & every time it sings it says
We learned the knack of coming back when the swing began to swing.

We learned the knack of coming back
— it's letting go —
When the swing began to swing.

I don't suppose you know my name, you get so many passing through,
On the town, make, piss or game, it must be all the same to you.

But I could show the very stone where she said “no” & she said “yes”,
But everybody's got their own scars, what's one story more or less?

Soho heart,
For all those numbers you can phone,
For all the romance & disease,
You know it's love & love alone,
That's going to bring you to your knees,
You & your Soho heart.

Here all the world's a little stage, the punters come, the punters go,
The hopeful faces show their age, the actors change but not the show,

& so we stammer & we stutter these different lines we've learned for love
The way the rainfall in the gutter reflects the moon & stars above.

I never thought I'd find you here, but I'd have known you anywhere,
Me with my belly full of beer, you second hand off Soho Square,

I see your goldplate's all worn thin, yeah, well that happens to us all,
But it's too late, for all my sins, to take this arrow from my soul.

Happy Birthday, General, I hope you like the card.
I hope I got the right address & this gets past the guards.
It's not like you to be so shy, you can't just slip away,
Happy Birthday, General Pinochet.

There's lots of Harrods chocolates from all your Right-Wing friends
A carte-blanche from the Wall Street Gang & old Ma Thatcher sends

Big slobbery kisses just for you, likewise the CIA do, too,
& the Pope says “How's it hangin', Bro' Pinochet?”

But of all the cards you open, I like this one best,
It's simply signed: The People… It's a warrant for your arrest,

It shows each loved & loving face you tortured & murdered.
Happy Birthday, General Pinochet.

I know we had to let you go on a technicality,
Because heads of state can do what they like,
& judges have no business being keen on human rights,

But next time you have a sleepless night, you'll hear the silence say:
“Hey, Happy Birthday, General Pinochet……”

Listen……
El pueblo unido jamás será vencido….

There's all this empty space & me & this acoustic guitar,
What passes for an audience is deep in what passes for conversation at the bar,

I think: subtle fingerpicking ain't going to work at all,
Supporting Chumbawamba at Whitehaven Civic Hall.

I decide to go pro-active, & give them post-punk, thrash-metal acoustic guitar,

What passes for audience is still deep in what passes for conversation at the bar,

The applause starts out indifferent, then rises to bugger all,
Supporting Chumbawamba at Whitehaven Civic Hall.

Is it all that radiation or inbreeding that goes on around here?

Or a steady diet of crap tribute bands & £1.80 a pint for crap keg beer?

I do the funny song. I do the swearing song, nothing works at all,
Supporting Chumbawamba at Whitehaven Civic Hall.

They've expended all their wit, marshmallows & underpants on the previous band,

So all I get's this one lone nutter shouting his head off at the foot of the microphone stand.

Even I don't want an encore, but the weirdest thing of all is someone buys a song book.
Supporting Chumbawamba at Whitehaven Civic Hall.

I get knocked down, but I get up again… that just about says it all,
Supporting Chumbawamba at Whitehaven Civic Hall.

The sea waits at the end of each street, a grey dog to snap at your heels,

The squares still talk of their better days, the gents & gentility, lamenting virginities lost

On a dirty weekend, with Pinkie & Rose, back when life was a sin,

But now everyone knows it's a packet of three & you don't feel a thing now
In London On Sea.

Up on the Downs with their airs & graces new fake Elizabethans put on their brave faces,

& pretend not to notice the dog & its beggars haunting the pavements outside their theatres,

While I'm lost on this ghost-train of thought, all of these years they've been selling us short,

At the end of the pier, nothing's for free, or worth what it costs you
In London on Sea.

But these streets they're the map of my life, each corner I turn keeps bringing me back,

Where everything changes except for the sea & the boy throwing stones who used to be me,

He's still lost for words, the West Pier at sunset, the language of waves,

I'm lost for words, you get your best poetry
In London On Sea.

The sea waits at the end of each street for the drunk & the sober, the gay & the straight,

The sea waits at the end of each street for the aging aquarian, punk vegetarian

Widows of Hove & the Kemptown old lags, the bungalow Colonels, the nags, the shags,

Old-age travellers, new-age pensioners, Adam & Steve & the gardeners of Kensington,

Students of love & the lovers of students & skateboards & needles & tearooms & Seagulls

& Princes & levellers, Gorse & of course, you & me
In London On Sea.

Miranda & Tim are getting married, we arrive behind the bride before the rain,

Miranda has her hair up, she looks lovely, & Tim won't ever look this good again.

Afterwards the kids run round the gravestones with all their crumbling promises of God,

It's a triumph of hope over experience,
These promises we make each other against the odds.

& the flowers will fade in the finest bouquets,
But this song is a rose for you, that never fades for you,
This song is a rose for you always

The vicar says it's just like Thomas Hardy, & I wonder if he's read Jude, The Obscure?

Though nowadays Tess doesn't do so badly, with her lonely bed 'n' breakfast & pushchair.

& yeah, I still believe that it's your body, but I'm glad I won't be doing love again,

& to those I've loved all I can say is “sorry”,
But I thank you for the sunlight in amongst the rain.

Miranda & Tim are getting married, the rain holds off until we're safe inside,

then the kids rush out & splash through all the puddles,
& the gravestones bow their heads before the bridegroom & the bride,

& the light turns gold across the Latin Quarter, where you wait for me outside Shakespeare & Co's,

It's a triumph of hope over experience,
& I bring to you, my one true love
This everlasting rose.

“The Triumph of Hope Over Experience” — Oscar Wilde

We signed the peace agreement, we danced between the lines,
We found the cure for poverty, the governments all resigned,

We found the guilty, guilty, we gave their suits the sack,
Refused to fit their uniforms & sent their medals back,

It was better late than never, it was not a day too soon,
it was Hope Street, tomorrow afternoon.

We lifted all the curses every zealot's ever laid,
Rescinded every fatwa & abolished all crusades,

We took back all the money, that they made from making bombs
& we turned it into ploughshares for the kids they stole it from,

We took the toys away from the boys, all they blow up now's balloons,
On Hope Street, tomorrow afternoon.

So we stood there as good as naked & we said so this is it,

This little bag of bones & dreams & wind & piss & shit,

With nothing half so beautiful, each smile beyond compare,

Well maybe I won't make it, but one day we'll be there,

& we'll share the bread & roses, it's not asking for the moon,
On Hope Street, tomorrow afternoon.

Heartbeat, liver, libido, biro — check.

You're all curves, shoulders, thighs,
Curled up in last night's heat,
Black hair, black underwear,
Half shell of white sheets.

In this Mediterranean light
Sun coming up with —

Outside, it's all right angles,
A regular ocean, rooftop, chimney pot,

However many windows in however many walls
With however many stories, untold, unfolding,

In this Mediterranean light,
This Mediterranean light,
Sun coming up with —

You & this city, you & this city,
Who could ask for more?

It's all dream, deep blue sea,
Everything you touch, everything you see,
Surface — velvet, PVC —

Places where some dreams come true, temporarily,
In this Mediterranean light,
This Mediterranean light
Sun coming up with —

You & this city, you & this city,
Who could ask for more?

A circle of friends, a circle of light,
Guitars & champagne somewhere in the night,
Who'd have believed that we'd all be here?

Here's to the snow & the next 50 years,
& the years come & go like sunlight & snow.

There's a casualty list, names that we knew,
Lips that we kissed that left scars & tattoos,

But the winter sun's touch makes everything shine,
I don't miss you that much, I just drink too much wine,

& the years come & go like sunlight & snow.

We spent most of the day in these cafés & bars,
Till the last post was played & they switched off the stars,

What can I say? It was over too soon,
But at the end of the day, there was the moon,

& the years come & go like sunlight & snow.