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The sun struggles up another beautiful day
And I felt glad in my own suspicious way
Despite the contradiction and confusion
Felt tragic without reason
There's malice and there's magic in every season
From the foaming breakers of the poisonous surf
The other side of Summer
To the burning forests in the hills of Astroturf
The other side of Summer
The automatic gates close up between the shanties and the palace
The blowtorch amusements, the voodoo chalice
The pale pathetic promises that everybody swallows
A teenage girl is crying 'cos she don't look like a million dollars
So help her if you can
'Cos she don't seem to have the attention span
From the foaming breakers of the poisonous surf
The other side of Summer
To the burning forests in the hills of Astroturf
The other side of Summer
Was it a millionaire who said "imagine no possessions"?
A poor little schoolboy who said "we don't need no lessons"?
The rabid rebel dogs ransack the shampoo shop
The pop princess is downtown shooting up
And if that goddess if fit for burning
The sun will struggle up the world will still keep turning
Madman standing by the side of the road saying
"Look at my eyes, look at my eyes, look at my eyes, look at my eyes"
Now you can't afford to fake all the drugs your parents used to take
Because of their mistakes you'd better be wide awake
From the foaming breakers of the poisonous surf
The other side of Summer
To the burning forests in the hills of Astroturf
The other side of Summer
The mightiest rose
The absence of perfume
The casual killers
The military curfew
The cardboard city
An unwanted birthday
The other side of summer
The dancing was desperate, the music was worse
They bury your dreams and dig up the worthless
Goodnight
God bless
And kiss "goodbye" to the earth
The other side of summer
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The man in the corner of this picture has a sinister purpose
In the teeming Temple of the Railroad Kings
He's planting a trashy paperback book for accidental purchase
Containing all the secrets of life and other useless things
But I can't bring myself to look
Wake up Zombie
Write yourself another book
You want to scream and shout my little flaxen lout
Hurry down Doomsday the bugs are taking over
She sleeps with the shirt of a late, great country singer
Stretched out on her poor jealous husband's pillow
In time you can turn these obsessions into careers
While the parents of those kidnapped children start the bidding
for their tears
But I can't bring myself to look
Wake up Zombie
Get yourself off the book
You want to scream and shout my little waxen lout
Hurry down Doomsday the bugs are taking over
Forget about Beethoven, Rembrandt and rock and roll
Forget about Mickey Mouse, Marlboro and Coca Cola
Forget about Cadillac, Mercedes and Toyota
Forget about Buddha, Allah, Jesus and Jehovah
Hurry down Doomsday the bugs are taking over
Anyday now a giant insect mutation
Will swoop down and devour the white man's burden
Starting out with all of the sensitive ones
Better make like a fly if you don't want to die
Look out there goes Gordon
But I can't bring myself to think
Wake up Zombie
Kick up a big stink
You want to scream and shout my little Saxon lout
Hurry down Doomsday the bugs are taking over
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I was hell-bent on destroying my powers of concentration
While you were living like a saint
And all the time the very one you trusted was washing off
somebody else's paint
Now you've got yourself a brand new occupation
Every fleeting thought is a pearl
And beautiful people stampede to the doorway
of the funniest fucker in the world
They're here to help you
Satisfy your desire
There's a bright future for all you professional liars
Now you know how to be dumb
Are you ready to take your place in the modern museum of mistakes?
Don't you know how to be dumb?
Like a building thrown up overnight in one of those reverse earthquakes
They emptied out all the asylums, they emptied out all the gaols
The "New Bruise" was the name of a dance craze
By "Jesus Cross and the Cruel Nails"
Followed up by "Torturing Little Beaver"
With their contraption of barbed wire
Between the fear and the fever lies all the rejection they require
They'll be howling by midnight, they'll be drooling by dawn
Skulls shrunk down to the size of their brains
Heads shaven and shorn
Now you know how to be dumb
Are you ready to take your place in the modern museum of mistakes?
Don't you know how to be dumb?
Like a building thrown up overnight in one of those reverse earthquakes
Trapped in the House of the Perpetual Sucker
Where bitterness always ends so pitifully
You always had to dress up your envy in some half-remembered
philosophy
Now you're masquerading as pale powdered genius
Whose ever bad intention has been purged
You could've walked out any time you wanted but face it you
didn't have the courage
I guess that makes you a full time hypocrite or some kind of
twisted dilettante
Funny though people don't usually get so ugly till they think
they know what they want
Scratch your own head stupid
Count up to three
Roll over on your back
Repeat after me
Don't you know how to be dumb?
Are you ready to take your place in the modern museum of mistakes?
Don't you know how to be dumb?
Like a building thrown up overnight in one of those reverse earthquakes
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"I'm trouble" she said
Spread out on the floor of her father's house
Her promise was almost undone
Under her tongue, dissolving her responsibilities
To finally deny everyone with unflattering comparison
CHORUS
All grown up
And you don't care anymore
And you hate all the people that you used to adore
And you despise all the rumors and lies of the life you led
before
Did I hear you right?
You're feeling hounded and pushed around
You want to just lay down and die
If all of this life has been such a big disappointment to you
Why don't you stop blaming some guy
And go give the next one a try
CHORUS
But look at yourself
You'll see you're still so young
You haven't earned the weariness
That sounds so jaded on your tongue
"I'm weak" she says
And blesses herself and gets into bed
Clutching the covers to her throat
"So punish me now and let me go back to the sham of my life"
"This night is the perfect antidote for all of the poison that
you wrote"
CHORUS
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We play these parlour games
We play at make believe
When we get to the part where I say that I'm going to leave
Everybody loves a happy ending but we don't even try
We go straight past pretending
To the part where everybody loves to cry
CHORUS:
Indoor fireworks
Can still burn your fingers
Indoor fireworks
We swore we were safe as houses
They're not so spectacular
They don't burn up in the sky
But they can dazzle or delight
Or bring a tear
When the smoke gets in your eyes
You were the spice of life
The gin in my vermouth
And though the sparks would fly
I thought our love was fireproof
Sometimes we'd fight in public darling
With very little cause
But different kinds of sparks would fly
When we got on our own behind closed doors
CHORUS
It's time to tell the truth
These things have to be faced
My fuse is burning out
And all that powder's gone to waste
Don't think for a moment dear that we'll ever be through
I'll build a bonfire of my dreams
And burn a broken effigy of me and you
CHORUS
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He selects the plainest face form a spiteful row of girls
Elegant insulted women, a flaw of cultured pearls
He drops a name or two, she fails to catch
At last he's met his match
Unspoiled and unaffected, he wants her so much
She puts up half-hearted resistance, like she was taught to do
She's heard some of those small town playboys but this is
something new
His promise seems dangerous, she'd like to believe
He says "You'd better leave"
"You've only got yourself to blame, shame, or deceive"
The waiting lines are long
They never get too far
Everyone wearing that medal with pride
Harpies Bizarre
I looked on but hesitated
I failed to interrupt
You're so hard to tell the truth to
So easy to corrupt
I'll memorize your face
Your tragic smile
The hurt look in your eyes
As you betrayed yourself to the part of him that dies
The waiting lines are long
They never get too far
They're shining up their shoes to kick a falling star
You think you should be somebody
But you don't know who you are
Everyone wearing that medal with pride
Harpies Bizarre
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In an anonymous rendezvous
Where the forbidden lovers repair
They're burning down another damn candle
They're melting the tables and chairs
Beneath them applause from the balcony
whenever they accomplished making love
Other times they thought they heard laughter
Coming from the balcony above
She lies to his right and she carelessly recites
All of her brand new appetites
She seems brittle and small, it don't sound like her at all
Since she came back to him after the fall
She said "You never visit the countryside"
"So I've made you a country to order"
She put up a little tent in the bedroom
Crickets played on a tape-recorder
The ceiling was festooned with phosphorous stars
She noticed his skin turning cold
Burning all his clothes on the bonfire
"Relax" she whispered and tightened the blindfold
She lies to his right and she carelessly recites
All of her brand new appetites
She seems brittle and small, it don't sound like her at all
Since she came back to him after the fall
You've changed but not for the better babe
I'd tell you why but what's the use
'Cos it's the same kind of pity
A drunkard gives as his excuse
You were sharp and ideal as a bobby pin
Now your eyes are deserted and quiet
We both look like those poor shattered mannequins
Thrown through the window in the riot
She lies in his arms and without any qualms
Revels in shallow delights
She seems brittle and small, it don't sound like her at all
Since she came back to him after the fall
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Georgie grew to hate her name
It sounded like a tiny man
And the one she had said "I can't see you, but I'll call you
whenever I can"
Sometimes the phone would ring, when she was half-asleep
A voice would drag her down with its suggestions
Though she often felt cheated, she never felt cheap
Well heaven knows what fills the heart and makes you feel so
alive
It's impossible to tear apart
Georgie and her rival
It was half-past February
And he hadn't called since New Year's Day
Maybe he'd found another woman to say those words no chapel girl
should say
Her mother would phone and always keep talking
She'd try to be polite, making faces
But somewhere in the back of her mind, her rival was stalking
Well heaven knows what fills the heart and makes you feel so
alive
It's impossible to tear apart
Georgie and her rival
Her rival would always wait till the eighth or ninth bell
He'd be desperate anyway and drunk as well
She always liked to hurt him to prove he was prepared
To love her anyway that she wanted
So she could tell which she preferred
He sat up with his address book trying to think what mood he's in
His finger traced past Georgie's name to someone who needed less
persuading
He didn't hear through her disguise he didn't leave her in a rush
Just like the promise that he left on her machine
That almost made her blush
The radio plays a lover's symphony
"The number you have dialed has been re-directed"
Now she puts him on the speaker-phone
Whenever she has company
Well heaven knows what fills the heart and makes you feel so
alive
It's impossible to tear apart
Georgie and her rival
. . .
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Here lies the powder and perfume
The pretty clothes are scattered 'round the room
And it's so like Candy
Here lies the lipstick and the face
The coloured tablets keep it all in place
And it's so like Candy
So like Candy
What did I do to make her go
Why must she be the one
That I have to love
So like Candy
Here lies a picture of a girl
Her arms are tight around that lucky guy
And it's so like Candy
And in her eyes a certain look
I thought I'd seen the last of long ago
And it's so like Candy
So like Candy
What did I do to make her go
Why must she be the one
That I have to love
So like Candy
I remember the day that picture was taken
We were so happy then
But that's so like Candy
She seemed so sweet to me I was mistaken
Oh no not that again
But that's so like Candy
She just can't face the day
So she turns and melts away
Here lie the records that she scratched
And on the sleeve I find a note attached
And it's so like Candy
"My Darling Dear it's such a waste"
She couldn't say "goodbye", but "I admire your taste"
And it's so like Candy
So like Candy
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You had your own way one too many times and now
you're going to find out what it's like
Just what it's like, now you're a mess
You wanted something you could never possess
You went your own way one too many nights
You treated her like some small oversight
What in the world makes her think that she can
Turn you from a playboy into a man
She's going to make you suffer tonight
To turn you from a playboy into a man
And when you're worthy of her then she might
Turn you from a playboy into a man
You thought you were the answer to her prayers
the perfect gift that every girl prefers
But that's the trouble 'cos every girl still thinks you're hers
So there you are with your gold chains jangling
Your lucky charms and jewelry dangling
But when she saw you she turned and ran
To turn you from a playboy into a man
She's going to make you suffer tonight
To turn you from a playboy into a man
And when you're worthy of her then she might
Turn you from a playboy into a man
You couldn't see that the juvenile things you do
Would drag you down and now that the joke's on you
You're pretty cold you end as you start
When your facade isn't falling apart
So now you're standing in your underwear
Well now you know just how it feels for her
You're halfway there you know that she can turn you from a
playboy into a man
She's going to make you suffer tonight
To turn you from a playboy into a man
And when you're worthy of her then she might
Turn you from a playboy into a man
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Sweet pear, sweet pear
Those who say they love you would never dare
I'll watch out for you
I'll always be there
In the hour of distress you need not fear
In all the world there's only one true love
And finding it's hard enough
I bless whatever's in the sky above
For bringing you to me
But there's a void without your kiss
I wake on the precipice above the abyss
And though the touch of your lips these fears dismiss
Make no mistake there is an ache I have to live with
Was my grip too lose, my grip too strong
That made you want to run away
And now you're back where I pretend you belong
I wonder every night and day
How long
I swear this is my prayer
till we're burned and scattered in the atmosphere
Or lost in the world across a crowded room
I am your stupid lover, your wretched groom
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If I am frightened then I can hide it
If I am crying, I'll call it laughter
If I am haunted, I'll call it my imaginary friend
If I am bleeding, I'll call it my wine
But if you leave me then I am broken
And if I'm broken then only death remains
If I am drifting, then I can fight it
If I am sinking, no-one will know it
If I am blinded I'll have my voices still to guide me
If they yet fled away I'd bless the silence
But if you leave me then I am broken
And if I'm broken then only death remains
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I saw a girl who'd found her consolation
She said "One day my Prince of Peace will come"
Above her head a portrait of her father
The wilted favour that he gave her still fastened to the frame
"They've got his bones and everything he owns
I've got his name"
Well you can laugh at this sentimental story
But in time you'll have to make amends
The sudden chill where lovers doubt their immortality
As the clouds cover the sky the evening ends
Describing a picture of eyes finally closing
As you sometimes glimpse terrible faces in the fire
We'll I'm the lucky goon
Who composed this tune
from birds arranged on the high wire
Who on earth is tapping at the window?
Does that face still linger at the pane?
I saw you shiver though the room was like a furnace
A shadow of regret across a young mother's face
So toll the bell or rock the cradle
Please don't let me fear anything I cannot explain
I can't believe, I'll never believe in anything again
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