Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay (Otis Redding)

Skimming pebbles on the ocean
Sipping cocktails on the boardwalk
Twisting worry beads through the fingers
Keeping death another world away
Reading papers in the sunlight
Buying the NME for the music charts
Who is that soulful singer
Whose words sweetly and succinctly let us sway

That Saturday afternoon
In the closing down sale electric shop
Light Blue Stax and Red Atlantic records
Forty-fives for the less than twenty-fives
I bought them and I played them
I kept them for more than many a day
Light Blue Stax and Red Atlantic records
They set me up as the man who went astray

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Flower Duet (Léo Delibes)

All of those years
At the opera
In the music collection
Even selected for the funeral service
Played
In every room in this house
Yet only yesterday
Translated into English

Such that you could be by the river bank
Such that you could be holding hands
Such that you too
Could be there together
Going on forever
Going on and on and on forever
Hitting the high notes graciously
Not dwelling too too long on the low notes

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Suite Française (Rael Jones)

Flames of letters burning
She picks remnants from the ashes
Stylus on the record-player slowly turning
His hands held out
As an invitation to dance
Piano lid suggestively opened
Might I play you something he once said
As he stared out way beyond the distance

We never talk of love in this house
We never ever talk of love
I only met my husband twice
Before we were married
Now I read that he was unfaithful
He fathered a child by another woman
Told to me within these barren letters
From those who I have come to loathe

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Unbutton The Past, It Is The Future

I am driving by the airport now, which makes me think
Of my Friday afternoon flights to Jersey
Today there are two jets on the tarmac
Most probably bound for Amsterdam or Denmark
Or Finland; perhaps places further North, Reykjavik even

I would like to go to any of those places
I would love to have met up with you there
Or even to have taken you with me
But it wasn't to be
I did send you a postcard from Stockholm
Perhaps that is as close as we ever ought to have been

Alternatively
I would like to go to any of those places
I would love to meet up with you there
Or even to take you with me
Become closer to you than you ever might have allowed

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In The Absence Of Any Reply

It's self-defence, to be kept in my cage
As the age of uncertainty lies on the page
It sure feels good, with somewhere to go
A space to meander, with nothing to show

I've worn myself out, I've come to the end
We have no future, on that I can depend
I'm off, I am away, in search of other roles
I shall seek out a quite different stipend

I only asked you for one message
The message that you never did send
Yes I am hurting, truth cannot be denied
But I will gather myself, I will attempt to mend

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