The Divine Comedy Album

Well we've been going together
Since the eighth of November
And though it seems like forever
I very clearly remember
You told me on our first date
What you'd do on my birthday
Well hooray it's my birthday!
And frankly, baby, I can't wait.

I don't want to die a virgin

The other day I discovered
A magazine of my brotherís
I read it under the covers
It got me all hot and bothered.
Now every time that I see you
Your uniform becomes see-through
You don't know how much I need you
The "Handy Andys" I've been through

I don't want to die a virgin

The pines and the cedars rejoice in his fall
How are you fallen from heaven?
Oh Hellel, star of the morning

With all the bombs and the bird-flu
We're probably gonna be dead soon
And here we are in your bedroom
Oh did I tell you I love you I love you I love you
I can feel your heart beating
And your breathing increasing
Your folks are out for the evening
I really hope I'm not dreaming

I don't want to die a virgin

It was not that long ago it first occurred to me
That my mother was a person in her own right
Now I realize how very lucky I have been
And there, but for the grace of God, go I

Mother dear - she can see inside
Mother dear - and I've nowhere to hide
Mother dear - did I spoil your plans?
Mother dear - I do the best I can

When I was a teenager I really did believe
That my parents had adopted me
And the way I carried on they must have thought
They'd brought the wrong little baby home from maternity
I'd like to say I'm sorry but my...

Mother dear - she already knows
Mother dear - she'll never let me go
Mother dear - kept me warm and safe
Mother dear - I'll never lose my faith in mother dear

If I ever get arrested by the C.I.A.
Because they take me for a foreign spy
They wonít need no lie-detector, all they'll have to do
Is make me look into my motherís eyes

Mother dear - she can see inside
Mother dear - and I've nowhere to hide
Mother dear - kept me warm and safe
Mother dear - I'll never lose my faith in mother dear

Mother dear - did I spoil your plans?
Mother dear - I do the best I can

She's a diva lady
She's a hopeless case
She needs extra make-up
For her extra face
She's a hopeless case

She's a diva lady
She's got special needs
She wants chocolate candy
But no blue ones please
She's got special needs

She lives in a vacuum
She has no real home
Where did diva come from?
Where shall diva go?
She has no real home

She's got thirty people
In her entourage
Just in case her ego
Needs a quick massage
She's got a famous boyfriend
They go out in style
She makes him look hetero
And he helps her profile

She's a diva lady
She looks down her nose
At the shoes I'm wearing
And my care-worn clothes
Such a pretty nose

Back in the day you had been part of the smart set
You'd holidayed with kings, dined out with starlets
From London to New York, Cap Ferrat to Capri
In perfume by Chanel and clothes by Givenchy
You sipped camparis with David and Peter
At Noel's parties by Lake Geneva
Scaling the dizzy heights of high society
Armed only with a cheque-book and a family tree

You chased the sun around the Cote d'Azur
Until the light of youth became obscured
And left you on your own and in the shade
An English lady of a certain age
And if a nice young man would buy you a drink
You'd say with a conspiratorial wink
"You wouldn't think that I was seventy"
And he'd say,"no, you couldn't be!"

You had to marry someone very very rich
So that you might be kept in the style to which
You had all of your life been accustomed to
But that the socialists had taxed away from you
You gave him children, a girl and a boy
To keep your sanity a nanny was employed
And when the time came they were sent away
Well that was simply what you did in those days

You chased the sun around the Cote d'Azur
Until the light of youth became obscured
And left you on your own and in the shade
An English lady of a certain age
And if a nice young man would buy you a drink
You'd say with a conspiratorial wink
"You wouldn't think that I was sixty three"
And he'd say,"no, you couldn't be!

Your son's in stocks and bonds and lives back in Surrey
Flies down once in a while and leaves in a hurry
Your daughter never finished her finishing school
Married a strange young man of whom you don't approve
Your husband's hollow heart gave out one Christmas Day
He left the villa to his mistress in Marseilles
And so you come here to escape your little flat
Hoping someone will fill your glass and let you chat about how

You chased the sun around the Cote d'Azur
Until the light of youth became obscured
And left you all alone and in the shade
An English lady of a certain age
And if a nice young man would buy you a drink
You'd say with a conspiratorial wink
"You wouldn't think that I was fifty three"
And he'd say,"no, you couldn't be!

I found a photograph of you and me
Drinking sangria somewhere by the sea
There's laughter in our eyes and dreams in our hearts
Before life waded in and tore it all apart

When there's no more lies to hide behind
And no more tears to cry
I know we'll be alright
'Cause even though the skies above are cold and grey
I'm sure tomorrow we will see the light of day

I found some letters from a happier time
I smelled the scented pages and re-read the lines
Why must the summer always turn into the fall?
Why must we lose love to ever know love at all?

When there's no more lies to hide behind
And no more tears to cry
I know we'll be alright
'Cause even though the skies above are cold and grey
I'm sure tomorrow we will see the light of day

The light of day shining through our window pane

[No lyrics]

I'll have a shower
And then phone my brother up
Within the hour
I'll smash another cup
Please don't start saying that
Or I'll start believing you
If I start believing you
I'll know that this party fears two

And what if this party fears two?
The alcohol loves you while turning you blue
View it from here
From closer to near
Awake me

Don't turn around
I won't have to look at you
And what's not found
Is all that I see in you
My manners are failing me
I'm left feeling ugly
And you say it's wonderful
To live with I never will

So what if this party fears two?
The alcohol loves you while turning you blue
View it from here

From closer to near
Awake me

I'm standing still
And you say I dress too well
Still standing still
I might but it's hard to tell
Even a slight remark
Makes nonsense and turns to shark
Have I done something wrong?
What's wrong's the wrong that's always in wrong

I'll have a shower
And then phone my brother up
Within the hour
I'll smash another cup

Do you remember that old T.V. show
Arthur C. Clarkeís Mysterious World?
Well if I.T.V. make a new series
They ought to come take a look at my girl

I don't understand her
She doesn't make any sense to me
I don't understand her
It's like she's speaking in Swahili.

Do you remember that girl in the early eighties
Allergic to everything
Everywhere that she went in her plastic tent
The doctors tried but they couldn't begin

To even understand her
And it's exactly the same for me
I don't understand her
She is as deep as the Baltic Sea.

Well it's no big deal, I'm not complaining
Sometimes things don't need explaining
She's my angel, that's the main thing
And that is never changing.
She's a mass of contradictions
A pick'n'mix of strange convictions
It can be a source of friction
But there are worse afflictions
Love doesn't make distinctions.

Now to make matters worse she claims the universe
Is expanding like a balloon
But baby if it's meant to be infinite
Then where is it expanding to?!

I don't understand you
You just don't make any sense to me
I don't understand you
You are completely logic free
I don't understand her, no no
She is uncharted territory
I don't understand her
But she's as lovely as she can be

I packed up my suitcase and left the old farm
I promised my papa I'd come to no harm
And I went to the city where I was employed
In a firm of accountants as an office boy.

I fetched and I carried, I watched and I learned
And slowly but surely I rose through the firm.
But then I discovered my colleagues one day
Massaging the figures for personal gain
I said "I'll not wallow in this house of shame"
I'll plough my own furrow, I'll go my own way.

Gravely I listened to Reverend McBride
Down at the mission house each Friday night.
Heavenís salvation for those who know best,
Hell and damnation for all of the rest.

Try as I might I could not understand
Why The Almighty's all-merciful hand
Should cast away those whose only mistake
Was never to know the Christian faith
The stars that we follow can lead us astray

I'll plough my own furrow, I'll go my own way

I fled from the capitalís bourgeois malaise
And trekked through the wilderness for fourteen days
'Til I found the guerillas camped high in the hills
I asked Comrade Diaz whom I should kill.

I crept into town with a knife in my teeth
And entered the home of the Chief of Police
I stood at his bedside and raised up my blade
But then I looked to the crib where his little one lay
You murder tomorrow by killing today

I'll plough my own furrow, I'll go my own way.

Below the Po rolls slow from Alps to Adriatic Sea
Blow old bellows, blow
Take us where you will
Padua, Genoa, Corsica, Catalonia, O Segovia
O unfathomable firmament.

That we should set a course between the two
Clinging only to our orb of blue and red
Like Romanovs to a Faberge egg
Push Sisyphus, push
Heave our sphere into the heavens.

If I'm to die then let it be in summertime
In a manner of my own choosing
To fall from a great height
On a warm July afternoon
Liverwurst, Battenburg, Emmenthall, Syllabub, Muscadet
Throw it all away
We need more height
O Newton, release this apple from its earthly shackles
And live to fight another day.

Go back from whence you came the swallows cry
You've corrupted and befouled the ground you walk upon
And now you come to poison the skies
Please friends, forgive this brief intrusion.

Smoking my six-hundredth last cigarette
Out of the studio sky-light
Watching the ash as it rolls down the roof
Leaving a trail of grey-white

All through its short life it gives of itself
Giving and giving and slowly diminishing
Until there isn't a crumb of it left
It no longer is, it's a snowball in negative

Wandering home along Marlborough Road
I realize in amazement
That I have been, for how long I don't know,
Avoiding the cracks in the pavement

All through this short life we give of ourselves
Giving and giving and slowly diminishing
Leaving a mark that will gradually fade
Ash in the breeze, snowballs in negative

[No lyrics]

Listen very carefully
I'll say this only once -
I haven't had a moment's peace
In thirty-seven months
Commitments squeezed like tinned sardines
Into each precious hour
But I'll survive, 'cause where there's life
There's generally a bar

(Line 'em up)

Births and deaths and marriages
Cabbages and kings
Slugs and snails and e-mails
Other precious things
Cherubim and seraphim
Go green with envy for
All the births and deaths and marriages
Mortality affords

Today a man got on my tram
And wiped his sweaty neck
And suddenly, I saw how he
Must look whilst having (sex!)
I felt like Henry the Sixth felt
When he sang hysterically
Watching the slaughter his supporters
Thought he ought to see

Births and deaths and marriages
Divorces, christenings
Isn't life a roll of strife
Round a splendid thing
Cherubim and seraphim
Continually do cry
"Life's wasted on these mortal ones
So can we have a try?"

(Yeah)

Here's a story 'bout a boy
Ignored by all the class
Broke his leg so he could get them
All to sign his cast
But instead of writing "Get Well Soon"
They wrote "You Suck"
A dreadful story, I'm terribly sorry
At least I - made it up!

Births and Deaths and Marriages
Cabbages and kings
Tops and tails and screams and wails
Cheated in between
What the hell? I'm fit and well
I'm able and I'm willing
I'm not from Venus or from Mars -
I'm from Enniskillen!

So why watch the nation's "Hundred Greatest
Things In History"
When the top spot goes by lot
To Bohemian Rhapsody?
You will never see a poor bookie
The dealer always wins
And there ain't no clocks 'round the Vegas slots
Keep texting your votes in

(Woo!)

Goodnight, and may your God go with you