| Secret Drinker
Lyric by Clive James, music by Pete Atkin
Perching high like an old-time man of law
He travels on a barstool to enchanted lands
And as the world before him swims and glows
The secret drinker's only sure that he is real
By the feel of his elbows and the steadily increasing
Weight of his forehead in his hands
And behind the bar
Like turreted and battlemented towns of long ago
The lines of coloured bottles swim and glow
Brilliantly as at the day of wrath
Or the year of the comet
But the secret drinker is far from it
Away from it all
He can ease the present back into the past
Staring at the pastels and the prisms on the shelf
With the magic words that make the evening last
The same again and have one for yourself
He's a connoisseur
He can space it out with chasers, he can let it burn
It's a trick it takes a little while to learn
You might see the youngsters of today sniff a cork
and they vomit
But the secret drinker is far from it
Away from it all
He can make the looming future lose its sting
Staving off the pressure is a bargain at the price
Of the magic words that make the angels sing
The same again, go easy on the ice
Perching high like an old-time man of law
He travels on a barstool to enchanted lands
And as the world before him swims and glows
The secret drinker's only sure that he is real
By the feel of his elbows and the steadily increasing
Weight of his forehead in his hands that should be ceasing
To tremble by now and beginning to resemble
The hands of a man he used to know
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