Homburg

Album: Greatest Hits (1967)
Charted: 6 34
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  • Your multilingual business friend
    Has packed her bags and fled
    Leaving only ash-filled ashtrays
    And the lipsticked unmade bed
    The mirror on reflection
    Has climbed back upon the wall
    For the floor she found descended
    And the ceiling was too tall

    Your trouser cuffs are dirty
    And your shoes are laced up wrong
    You'd better take off your homburg
    'Cause your overcoat is too long

    The town clock in the market square
    Stands waiting for the hour
    When its hands they both turn backwards
    And on meeting will devour
    Both themselves and also any fool
    Who dares to tell the time
    And the sun and moon will shatter
    And the signposts cease to sign

    Your trouser cuffs are dirty
    And your shoes are laced up wrong
    You'd better take off your homburg
    'Cause your overcoat is too long

    Your trouser cuffs are dirty
    And your shoes are laced up wrong
    You'd better take off your homburg
    'Cause your overcoat is too long

    Oh, your trouser cuffs are dirty
    And your shoes are laced up wrong
    You'd better take off your Homburg
    'Cause your overcoat is too long

    Your trouser cuffs are dirty Writer/s: GARY BROOKER, KEITH REID
    Publisher: T.R.O. INC.
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 3

  • Barbara Atherton from BridlingtonHaving recently watched the excellent Jeremy Thorpe Scandal drama, I can only associate Homburg with an awful image of Thorpe wearing that mark of his class. Really, he should have been dripping with shame (overcoat too long). He needed to resign (remove that hat). His multi-lingual business friend leaving a lipsticked unmade bed seems an acceptable lyrical metaphor for the vaselined sheets of the Norman Scott episode but also for the whole shameful denouement.
    Or the words could be adapted to any one of the despicable sexual scandals uncovered in the '60's and beyond that politicians always seem able to weasel their way out of.

    My analysis only makes this wonderful song more powerful to me.
  • Ben Dirks from Nijmegen, -I just love this song [better than the generally acknowledged "Whiter shade" ... It is of course the great melody and the [like Shade] completely uncomprehendible lyrics; nice imagery thuogh ...
  • Lester from New York City, NyI was a big fan of Procol Harum during the Trower years. They produced some great albums. Would love for a few more of their songs to be listed in here, "In Held 'Twas In I" in particular.
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