Photographs in Empty Houses
One of 9 original songs, 1 instrumental piece, 2 covers and 2 theatre songs on my first musical cabaret album.
More details.
Des de Moor
voice, acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards and programming
Another from the batch of songs that I wrote during 1983/84 when I was at college in Hatfield.
The forceps on your bloody head?
A hospital? Could mum decline
An epidural in the spine?
The registrar, she knew the game:
Left blank the space for daddy's name.
The district nurse. oh how she smiled!
She thought them fit to have a child
And make it well adjusted.
A private house or council flat?
And were you thin or were you fat
Or spotty? Hey, did you wear glasses
And did you miss the scripture classes
Because your daddy wrote a letter
Saying he could teach you better?
For some headmasters frown upon
A godless house, a godless son.
It's best to be adjusted.
And did you run with other goons
Those frozen winter afternoons
Half naked on the football field?
Did boyhood dreams of stardom yield
To icy grass and frozen fears
Of failure witnessed by your peers?
And was that when your thoughts inclined
To better ways to turn your mind
Towards the maladjusted?
While skiving in the library
You read of dope and LSD.
And did you never seek to find
Forbidden pits inside the mind
Or was your thirst for mischief slaked
On nicking Tesco's jaffa cakes?
If you had sense you'd tried to stop
On Rothmans from the corner shop.
They're for the well-adjusted.
Did adolescence treat you well
Or was it stiff and sticky hell?
Was it your shame to stain the bed
On healthy Mayfair colour spreads
Or did poor mummy hear the crack
And see the weals upon your back?
And did you have to make amends
For brave attempts at handsome friends
More normally adjusted?
A man grows up and takes a wife
And leads an honest working life.
His children, and the bread he wins
Redeem his minor youthful sins.
So spare the rod and spoil the child:
It's lonely out there running wild.
Your happiness as you grow old
Rewards you doing what you're told
And being well-adjusted.
Written: Hatfield, July 1984
Words |
Music |
© Copyright Des de Moor 1992
From the album Photographs in Empty Houses (see left).
All rights reserved. No material on these pages can be reproduced in whole or in part in any form, except for short passages for the purpose of quotation or review, without prior written permission of the copyright owner.
More lyrics |
Holy Water
The Family Way
A Million Stars
Fear of Bodily Fluids
Out of Step
Open the window softly (Brendan Behan; Mikis Theodorakis)
L'Ivrogne (Jacques Brel; François Rauber/Gérard Jouannest)
The Same Old Game
Under the Needle
Old Anne's Song (Christopher Logue, adapted from Bertolt Brecht; Des de Moor)
Picnic in the Free World
Adjusted
I saw the sun (August Strindberg translated by Jonas Finlay; Des de Moor)
Aeroplanes
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