Apple Cider Reconstitution

Album: Modern Times (1975)
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  • When we came to the station all the trains were rusty
    The doors were open and the windows broken in
    There was grass in all the cracks and the air hung musty
    The travel posters were flapping in the wind
    So we moved through the dust and gloom
    Playing waiting games in the waiting-room
    Lay our sleeping-bags out on the floor
    And on Sunday morning easy rider comes to me with apple cider
    Leaves me here without a place to go

    If I followed the coast road, I'd be home by evening
    The harbor lights still cut across the bay
    From the slot machine arcade the lights go streaming
    To the bikes outside the rock 'n' roll cafe
    Ah but you know those small town blues
    Are really too much to lose
    There's nothing really there to go back for
    And on Sunday morning easy rider comes to me with apple cider
    Leaves me here without a place to go

    Any railway station would be just fine, fine, fine
    To settle down and wash the cobwebs from your head
    Oh, if your situation's running dry, dry, dry
    Find a waiting-room beneath the stars to make your bed'

    Cause you know London can make your brain stall
    The streets get cold and empty on a rainy night
    So you duck into the subway station, you can hear the trains call
    They want to take you to the Earl's Court Road, but it don't seem right
    Cause it's na, na, na noowah
    On the juke-box, singing in the burger bar
    See the people's faces in the passing cars don't want to know
    And on Sunday morning easy rider comes to me with apple cider
    Leaves me here without a place to go

    You have the most appealing surface I have seen
    Bring it over here, lay it down by me
    Don't mean to make you nervous, I just mean
    To make you see, this is the place to be

    When we came to the station all the trains were rusty
    The air was empty and the platforms overgrown
    There were old tin cans and cats and the doors were crusted
    With mud and leaves and names carved long ago
    And the rails go on for ever in a silver trail to the setting sun
    You can follow them anywhere you want to go
    And on Sunday morning easy rider comes to me with apple cider
    Leaves me here without a need to know Writer/s: ALISTAIR IAN STEWART
    Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 3

  • Loz Butler from England, Just Back From Southern UsaI used to be very pedantic about language too, but 'growed' out of it. If Al Stewart had used the word underground, it would have scanned poorly and might have been read literally (per underworld or even interrment). Later, he talks about London transport taking us "...to the Earl's Court Road...", which brings us lyrically above ground again, but requires our legs!
    He is a poetic lyrical artist and I congratulate him for the canvas of this song as well as the whole album, which I cherish on original vinyl.
  • Libby from KentuckySame as ' Modern Times' - a combination of British and American english. Not one of my faves.
  • Incognito from LondonIt is very odd that he uses the phrase "subway station" in this otherwise fantastic song. I would have said that it was an appeal to an American audience, but this is such a location-specific song, it just doesn't add up.
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