Stuart Murdoch [Belle & Sebastian]

Ooh Get me away from here
I'm dying Play me
a song to set me free
Nobody writes them like
they used to
So it may as well be me
Here on my own now after hours
Here on my own now on a bus
Think of it this way
You could either be
successful or be us
With our winning smiles and us
With our catchy tunes and us
Now we're photogenic
You know we don't stand a chance

oh I'll settle down
with some old story
About a boy who's just like me
Thought there was love
in everything and everyone
You're so naive
They always reach a sorry end
After a while they always get it
Still it was worth it as
I turned the pages solemnly and then
With a winning smile the boy
With naivet succeeds
At the final moment I cried
I always cry at endings

Oh that wasn't what
I mean to say at all
From where I'm sitting rain
Washing against the lonely tenement
Has set my mind to wander
Into the windows of my lovers
They never know unless I write
This is no declaration
I just thought I'd
let you know goodbye
Said the hero in the story
It is mightier than swords
I could kill you sure
But I could only make you
cry with these words
cry with these words
cry with these words
cry with these words
Get me away I'm dying
Get me away I'm dying
Get me away I'm dying
Get me away I'm dying

Get me away I'm dying
Get me away I'm dying
Get me away I'm dying
Get me away I'm dying

mile and a half on a
bus takes a long time
The odour of old prison
food takes a long time to
pass you by

Day upon day of this wandering
gets you down
Nobody gives you a
chance or a dollar in this old town

Hovering silence
you is a giveaway
Squalor and smoke's not your style
I don't like this place
We better go

Then I compare notes with
your older sister
I am a lazy gett
she is as pure as the
cold driven snow

What did you learn from your
time in the solitary
Cell of your mind
There was noises distractions
from anything good
And the old prison food
Colour my life with the
chaos of trouble
Cause anything's better
than posh isolation
I missed the bus
You were laid on your back
With the boy from the arab strap
With the boy from the arab strap

something to speak of
the way you are feeling
To crowds there assembled
Do you ever feel you
have gone too far

Everyone suffers in silence a burden
The man who drives minicabs down in
Old Compton
The Asian man
With his love hate affair
With his racist clientele

central location for you is a
must as you stagger about making
free with your lewd and
lascivious boasts

We know you are soft
cause we've all seen you dancing
We know you are hard
cause we all saw you
drinking from noon
Until noon again
You're the boy with the filthy laugh
You're the boy with the arab strap

Strapped to the table with
suits from the shelter shop
Comic celebrity takes a
back seat as the cigarette catches
And sets off the smoke alarm
What do you make of the
cool set in London
You're constantly updating
your hit parade of your
ten biggest wanks

I don't care whether you hear this
I don't care if I'm alone here singing songs to myself
There's nobody else around, around
Meet you up at the Indian part of the town

The town's shut down, the people left with their bags
Their kids so there's not a sound a sound
But I must get from there to here
There's a small voice crying on the other side of the river from here

It's too late to phone her now
What went wrong, your grades were good
It would take a left wing Robin Hood to pay for school
Your dad's a boozer and you keep him alive

Just a minute close your eyes
If we settle for this compromise I'll stay with you
The river looks so good tonight
I don't know what's with your friend

She met a boy and at the summer's end
She said she'd had enough of playing games
I don't care cause I'm by myself
All the dancers left but I can't dance

So I will stay and clean the mess they left behind
But I dream as I set to scrub all the floors, the walls
I'm thinking of a song or two, a boy a girl a rendezvous
Are you coming or are you not?

There is nothing that would sort you out
There's nothing I could say or do
You're going to crash, I'll set the bails in front of you
Are you coming or are you not?

There is nothing that would sort you out
An interesting way of life
Deny yourself the benefits of being alive
You slept better in a sleeping train in a shed in a station

With a torch and a Woman's Realm to keep you warm
To keep you company
You slept better in a sleeping train in a shed in a station
With a torch and a Woman's Realm to keep you company tonight

Elope with me Miss Private and we’ll sail around the world
I will be your Ferdinand and you my wayward girl
How many nights of talking in hotel rooms can you take?
How many nights of limping round on pagan holidays?
Oh elope with me in private and we’ll set something ablaze
A trail for the devil to erase
San Francisco’s calling us, the Giants and Mets will play
Piazza, New York catcher, are you straight or are you gay?
We hung about the stadium, we’ve got no place to stay
We hung about the tenderloin and tenderly you tell
About the saddest ending of a book you ever had to read
The statue’s crying too and well he may
I love you I’ve a drowning grip on your adoring face
I love you my responsibility has found a place
Beside you and strong warnings in the guise of gentle words
Come wave upon me from the wider family net absurd
“You’ll take care of her, I know it, you will do a better job”
Maybe, but not what she deserves
Elope with me Miss Private and we’ll drink ourselves awake
We’ll taste the coffee houses and award certificates
A privy seal to keep the feel of 1960 style
We’ll comment on the decor and we’ll help the passer by
And at dusk when work is over we’ll continue the debate
In a borrowed bedroom virginal and spare
The catcher hits for .318 and catches every day
The pitcher puts religion first and rests on holidays
He goes into cathedrals and lies prostrate on the floor
He knows the drink affects
his speed he’s praying for a doorway
Back into the life he wants and the confession of the bench
Life outside the diamond is a wrench
I wish that you were here with me to pass the dull weekend
I know it wouldn’t come to love, my heroine pretend
A lady stepping from the songs we love until this day
You’d settle for an epitaph like “Walk Away, Renee”
The sun upon the roof in winter will draw you out like a flower
Meet you at the statue in an hour
Meet you at the statue in an hour

Working the village shop
Putting a poster up
Dreaming of anything
Dreaming of the time
when you are free from all the trouble you're in

In the mud, on your knees
Trying hard not to please
Anyone, all the time
Being a rebel's fine
But you go all the way to being brutal

You will have a boy tonight
You will have a boy tonight
On the first bus out of town
On the first bus out of town

Let's see your kit for games
All the girls look the same
You are challenging style for running miles
You're running miles in some boys jumper

Boo to the business world!
You know a girl who's tax free on her back and making
Plenty cash
While you are working for the joy of giving

You will have a boy tonight
You will have a boy tonight
And you hope that she will see
And you hope that she will see

You will have a boy tonight
Or maybe you will have a girl tonight
And you hope that she will see
And you hope that she will see

You are in two minds
Tossing a coin to decide whether you should tell your mum
About a dose of thrush you got while you were licking railings

But you read in a book
That you got free in Boots
There are lotions, there are potions
You can take to hide your shame from all those prying eyes

Lazy Jane, all the time
Painting lines
You are sleeping at bus stops
Wondering how you got your name
And what you're going to do about it

You will have a boy tonight
You will have a boy tonight
And you hope that she will see
And you hope that she will see

L-O-V-E love, it's coming back, it's coming back
L-O-V-E love, it's coming back, it's coming back
Refer to our discussions, confirm the terms of our love affair
I exercise all options, and I know I'll see you there
BA-BA-BA etc. etc.
L-O-V-E love, it's coming back, it's coming back
L-O-V-E love, it's coming back, it's coming back
Not withstanding provisions of clauses 1,2,3 and 4
Extend contractual period, me and you for evermore
You're the Legal Man, you've got to prove that you're no liar
I'll render services that you may reasonably require
L-O-V-E love, it's coming back, it's coming back
L-O-V-E love, it's coming back, it's coming back
Get out of the city and into the sunshine
Get out of the office and into the springtime
Get out of the city and into the sunshine
Get out of the office and into the springtime
Get out of the city and into the sunshine
Get out of the office and into the springtime
Get out of the city and into the sunshine
Get out of the office and into the springtime

There's a portrait
In a back room
Which I keep for days upon
Which I relent
And gaze for hours on
The muscle, skin and bone of some
Imaginary friend.

So how about it?
Show me please how I
Will look in twenty years
And let me please
Interpret history
In every line and scar
That's painted there in front of me.

It doesn't matter what I'm thinking
What I tell myself to do
I'll end up calling.

I stay in to defrost the fridge
Now the kid has gone to bed
A feeling of dread
At least when she's around
The trouble's there
It's worse to wake up with her
Falling round the room.

Listen Johnny, you're like a mother
To the girl you've fallen for,
And you're still falling

Listen Johnny, you're like a mother
To the girl you've fallen for,
And you're still falling

And if they come tonight
You'll roll up tight
And take whatever's coming to you next

I was surprised, I was happy for a day in 1975
I was puzzled by a dream, stayed with me all day in 1995
My brother had confessed that he was gay
It took the heat off me for a while
He stood up with a sailor friend
Made it known upon my sisters wedding day

I got married in a rush to save a kid from being deported
Now she's in love
I was so touched, I was moved to kick the crutches
From my crippled friend
She was not impressed that I cured her on the Sabbath
So I went to confess
When she saw the funny side, we introduced my child bride
To whisky and gin

The priest in the booth had a photographic memory
For all he had heard
He took all of my sins and he wrote a pocket novel called
"The State I Am In"
So I gave myself to God
There was a pregnant pause before he said ok
Now I spend my day turning tables round In Marks & Spencer's
They don't seem to mind

I gave myself to sin
And I've been there and back again
I gave myself to Providence
The state that I am in

Oh love of mine, would you condescend to help me
I am stupid and blind
Desperation is the Devil's work, it is the folly of a boys empty mind
Now I'm feeling dangerous, riding on city buses for a hobby is sad
Lead me to a living end
I promised that I'd entertain my crippled friend
My crippled friend