Love Chronicles

Album: Love Chronicles (1970)
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  • 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 Brylcreem 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 nigh-yight

    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 thereI thought I'd get there
    But the first girl was nearly the last girl
    She left my eyes in the drain
    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 hand 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 the silence that hung like a stain
    And I wanted to speak, or to 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 in 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 common-sense
    But it was no sense at all, but too much sense
    That took me to the bridge of impotence
    But it was no sense at all, but too much sense
    That took me to the bridge of impotence

    At first I didn't go out much at all
    I just stayed at 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 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
    I was hungry when found you, but I'm alright now

    They sigh, they lie, the refugees and superheroes
    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 alright 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"
    I was hungry when I found you but I'm alright now.

    Ba ba ba alright now

    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 businessmen
    Loved each other they said
    But all it was though was just a manoeuvre
    The quickest way into bed

    And so I followed the others' example
    And jumped into the melee
    In the 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

    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 me
    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 Writer/s: ALISTAIR IAN STEWART
    Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 1

  • Bill from San Francisco, Ca Al has claimed that this is the first song recorded with the F word in it. But he then goes on to defend it by saying it is put in the correct context: And where I thought that just plucking / the fruits of the bed were enough / it grew to be less like f__cking / and more like making love
    Al also says he wasn't very worried about it. It comes at 16 minutes into a 18 minute song, and he didn't figure it would be getting a lot of air play. He was wrong, and during a 1973 (I think) tour around British universities, he announced to disappointed audiences that this would be the last time he would ever be singing it.
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