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Roy Brown's alternative lyric to the Pete Atkin / Clive James song 'Apparition In Las Vegas'
When the king of chat'n'droll sang in the spa town He didn't take the stage like other men To Buxton came the ranks of Midnight Voices Agog to see the duo hale again To Buxton came the men with spreading paunches The ones who daily looked more like their father The ones who forced a smile at product launches But deep down knew that they would rather Be listening to 'Road of Silk' than all that dull and meaningless palaver To Buxton came the ranks of younger brothers Who'd studied to be lawyers who attaindered And long ago, then curfewed by their mothers, Had thought their dream to ever see Pete playing, dead He wrote and bound the book in which such early aspirations were remaindered When the king of chat'n'droll sang in the spa town The prince of diffidence was at his side The wine of fame was Clive's and he had drunk it Modest Pete seemed just there for the ride To Buxton came the seasoned ticket holders 6-album men who'd suffered market forces The ones who looked like 'wiser now but older's But still inside staunch patrons of lost causes Their Atkin albums lost perhaps, but never divvied up in their divorces When the king of chat'n'droll sang in the spa town They sold no discs they hadn't sold before To Buxton came the ranks of Midnight Voices It was them, not always Pete, who knew the score And knowing this, unprompted, loved him more To Buxton came the wives whose eager spouses Would shyly offer Pete for their inspection As if his voice had never filled their houses Nor nearly caused an in-car insurrection About the one cassette that seemed to have no earthly means for its ejection To Buxton came the die-hards made uncertain By the promise that had somehow not ignited The space-time fabric folded like a curtain To simpler days when dreams were all requited The first bar struck, the duo couldn't fail - to leave them all delighted
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