Pete Atkin sings
Girl On The Train

by Clive James and Pete Atkin,
from The Party's Moving On

[Much more at www.peteatkin.com]

LYRIC:

What did I do yesterday? Well I'll tell you in brief
Ten quid from the bank and I got out of town with relief
And slowly but surely my life came to flower again
Falling head over heels for a beautiful girl on the train

She was reading a book, taking in every word the man wrote
And there in the margin she made the occasional note
And I couldn't deduce why she didn't once blink with surprise
As fathom by fathom I gradually drowned in her eyes

But she kept on the job of improving her single-track brain
Ploughing steadily onward through obsolete Monsieur Verlaine
While no further than seven-foot-six from her fabulous mouth
Sat the leading young poetic hope of the whole planet earth

Well apart from the chance of the driver accepting a cheque
For crashing his loco so I could be brave in the wreck
To boldly encounter this creature was not in my power
And so my heart mended and broke in the course of an hour

Well at last we pulled in and as straight as a three-sided knife
She got up and walked like a princess away from my life
And unless she remembers the day she was reading Verlaine
In a second-class coach on her way through the fields in the rain
She won't know it's her that I sing to again and again
Again and again