Love Chronicles

Part I
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 Brylcream 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 night.
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.
Part II (slower)
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 hands 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 silence that hung like a stain
And I wanted to speak, or 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 with 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 commonsense,
But it was no sense at all, but too much sense
That took me to the bridge of impotence...
Segue to part 3.
The chords for each verse are the same.
Part III (faster, tempo 1)
(repeat)
At first I didn't go out much at all
I just stayed 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 so it came that I stood disillusioned
By everything I'd been told.
I just didn't believe love existed
They were all just digging for gold.
Widows and bankers and typists and bus'nessmen
Loved each other they said.
But all it was though was just a manoeuvre
The quickest way into bed.
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
But I was hungry when found you, but I'm al-right now.
They sigh, they lie, the refugees and superhe-roes
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 al-right 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"
Oh I was hungry when I found you but I'm al-right now.
Ba ba ba alright now
(repeat)
And so I followed the other's example
And jumped into the melee
In hunting grounds of Earls Court and Swiss Cottage
I did my best to get laid
Beer cans and parties, deb girls and arties
Bouncing around in the social confusion
Missing and making the grade.
(Instrumental Solo - ad lib)
Part IV (Slower)
The very first time I must confess
I thought you'd be like all of the rest
And we'd be strangers once again
By the time we were dressed.
But when you'd smoked your cigarette
And talked of some people that we'd met
I found myself asking was it set, did you have to go yet.
And so you laughed and then kissed me
And stayed for the whole weekend
Although the bed was so narrow
We had to sleep end to end.
And so the weeks passed through my brain
In their dadaistic chain
I found myself seeing you again, and again and again
And all you gave you gave it free
Asking for nothing back from me
You gave yourself unselfishly as a part of me.
And where I thought that just plucking
The fruits of the bed was enough
It grew to be less like fucking
And more like making love.
Of all the girls I ever knew some loved and some denied me
And all the words I ever said have been no use to hide me
And all the songs I ever sung each one of them untied me
And all the girls I ever loved have left themselves inside me.