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They drop the keyboard cover on the old upright piano The evening's jazz is over, it was midnight hours ago And a whole new day is dawning, the trumpeters and tenor men with their little leather cases Slip away into the morning like doctors on their rounds But who's this weaving on after Half an hour behind the laughter With an impossible great parcel Emitting intermittent hollow thunking sounds The guy on the double bass is I'm the hands you half remember I'm the face you can't quite place Peeping shyly round the corner Of the thumping lump of lumber I'm the guy on the double bass I'm the hands you half remember I'm the face you can't quite place Peeping shyly round the corner Of the thumping lump of lumber I'm the guy on the double bass I'll tell you this in secret But for Pete's sake keep it quiet I hate the bass, I loathe the bass Despise it and defy it It isn't cute, it isn't sweet, it isn't small, it isn't skinny It needs flags on when you tie it to the roof rack of the Mini It needs a room of its own When I see it every morning I have to persuade myself it hasn't grown This thing is bigger than both of us, darling Other instruments sound menacing maybe But only the bass is menacing to see For only a bass can loom And when you touch it accidentally it goes Boom I'm the hands you half remember I'm the face you can't quite place Peeping shyly round the corner Of the thumping lump of lumber I'm the guy on the double bass Since the beginning of the human race One thing has united players of the double bass they're all... tall They have to be to reach top G They have to be six feet easily But not many people can stand the pace In the race to be an ace on the double bass Anyone small would take a terrific mauling If the thing started falling It would be appalling Be appalling At eleven in the evening there's a phone call It's dramatic, persistent and persuasive Excited and emphatic 'There's a session at my place' the voice says, 'We need you badly' But I'm slow to be ecstatic and I head there rather sadly For I already know in this case There simply isn't space on his staircase for my bass And I'll be playing in the garden while the band plays in the attic Damn and blast your cedar carcass You bass creature One of these days I'm gonna grab you round the neck, and... I'm the hands you half remember I'm the face you can't quite place Peeping shyly round the corner Of the thumping lump of lumber I'm the guy on the double bass I'm the hands you half remember I'm the face you can't quite place Peeping shyly round the corner Of the thumping lump of lumber With the tone as sweet as amber From its mild and mellow timbre Ticking over like a humber Like a heartbeat under slumber Under every single number Swift or swinging, soft or sombre I'm the guy on the double bass Clive and Daryl wrote this song
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