love chronicles

i can remember the first girl that i did love

it was stephanie

in kindergarten arithmetic classes she used to

sit next to me

i'd pass her sticky sweets under the table

where the teacher couldn't see

although she wouldn't remember me now

sometimes i wonder where she can be

i can remember the first girl i kissed

it was christine when i was ten

i'd been told we were moving away

i thought i'd never see her again

oh don't forget me

i'll be back when they let me

before you learn how to lie when you're leaving

love is so much easier then

and at school would you believe three hundred boys

and no girls at all

but you're a fool if you should leave

just think of the joys of rugby football

and prep in the morning and brylcreem and acne

and cross-country running to kill evil thoughts

i'm surprised that i survived

i ran ten thousand miles with my back to the wall

i can remember the first girl that i made love to

it was in a park

in the lower pleasure gardens in bournemouth

in summer just after dark

my mind was reeling: oh what a feeling. i missed the bus and walked twelve miles home

and it really didn't seem far

and all through my seventeenth summer

running together from crowds and ties

taking our clothes off and feeling each other

with fingers and senses and mouths and eyes

incurring the glances of old disapproval

from elderly local inhabitant's eyes

oh time

time we hardly even knew you

you didn't touch us with your lies

in the halcyon days of my late adolescence

my goal seemed clearly in sight

playing electric guitar with a beat group

we set the ballrooms alight

camping it up for the dyed blonde receptionists

who told us we were al-ri-yi-yight

on an ego trip for a teenage superstar

on thirty shillings a nigh-yight

and so it fell that i came up to london

to look for fortune and fame

starry eyed in my seaside successes

and much too sure of the game

first girl i met there i thought i'd get there

but the first girl was nearly the last girl

she left my eyes in the drain

she sat on my floor in the dead of the night

rolling a joint and looking round for a light

her clothes were so black and her face was so white

how could i know what was right?

and i sat all huddled upon my bed

watching her in my innocence

and it was no sense at all

but too much sense

that took me to the bridge of impotence

oh artaud's anthology lay spread on the floor

and the thoughts that she gave me

i'd not met before

and stranded half hypnotised

i watched her in awe

of everything that she stood for

and i wanted more than anything to be like her with every sense

but it was no sense at all

but too much sense

that took me to the bridge of impotence

she came over to me and kissed me in play

taking my hand between her legs as she lay

and she looked in my eyes but i turned them away

finding no words fit to say

and i hated myself

but could not move

shattered in my confidence

but it was no sense at all

but too much sense

that took me to the bridge of impotence

now the stare of the lightbulb tore holes in my brain

as she got up in the silence that hung like a stain

and i wanted to speak

or to call out her name

but how could i begin to explain?

and my prosecuting room still holds

a strand of her hair in evidence

but it was no sense at all

but too much sense

that took me to the bridge of impotence

oh i still think about her when the night fills with rain

and speaks in its voices uneasy and vain

and i think were i maybe to find her again

oh i'd probably see her more plain

and i should have known she was just like me

it was after all only common-sense

but it was no sense at all

but too much sense

that took me to the bridge of impotence

but it was no sense at all

but too much sense

that took me to the bridge of impotence

at first i didn't go out much at all

i just stayed at home in my chains

picking over the threads of my confidence

and searching for the remains

and when i couldn't stand any more of it

going down to a club

mixing in with the sounds and the crowds

i let the music cover me up

and only

lonely

the harlequins and painted phonies

pick their ways

through the haze

of highs and lows and blues

and all that i could do was to pick my way to you

though i didn't tell you

you were just a thing to prove

i was hungry when found you

but i'm alright now

they sigh

they lie

the refugees and superheroes

on ice

so nice to see you

what's your name?

and all that i could do was to say the same to you

take you for the moment

though the moment wasn't true

but i was hungry when i found you and i'm alright now

though the street lamp cut through the curfew

it shed no light on our mind

it would have been so easy to love you

at any other time

only

lonely

you came to me the night hung coldly

in your eyes

some other time i might have stayed with you

but all that i could do was to turn around to you

thanks for what you gave me now it's time to say adieu"