Testi Woozy with Cider - James Yorkston, Jon Hopkins

Woozy with Cider

I watch the park quieten from the hotel window, I hear you softly sleep amongst\nthe cars and saluting songbirds,\nFor a city whose size had scared me for years right now it’s a feeble evening\nrow, not un-similar to a beach evening ending\nOn the table to my left there’s a magazine with a picture of dead money,\nmaking a mockery of what I’d call art\nBut what would I know about the scene in the city that has swallowed up friends,\nlovers and family,\nJust give me a village the size of a teacup\nYou’re happier here spread out with your eyes closed,\nI feel I should order a drink in celebration to welcome the summer,\nwhose first day is ending\nShould you wake you’d catch me of course and ask me the wisdom of drinking once\nmore\nI cast me mind back to yesterdays wedding where we got drunk and fell over\nI did my best to be polite to a family I’d never met, but on numerous occasions,\nI guess, I could have tried harder\nOf course by the end of the night I was a best friend with everyone and every\nones wife but right now I couldn’t remember their names no matter how hard I try\nAs the sun glares through the hotel window I wonder of our future and where it will lead to,\nI wonder if you’ll be laying there 10 years 20 years 30 years down the line\nI’ll still be staring out at the street confused about love and life,\nIt’ll be interesting to see if anyone every bought those songs of mine if anyone heard those words that I never got quite right,\nI think I can be honest in presuming the world is not exactly going to be leaping out its bed to make me rich using my songs in adverts selling oranges\nor lemons,\nWho knows I may end up owning the whole street, or more likely sleeping under\ntree in the park opposite\nWould the runners keep me awake or would I keep them asleep\nI’d hope I have the sense to move back home, as lovely as today is,\nI’d imagine the winter would be rather cold\nI’d been told for years that the devil had the best tunes and that the devil\nlived down here whereas us country folk weren’t worth the salt from the road\nEx pat magazine editors who choose to loose their temper on the easily\npersuaded northern town dwellers\nAnd sure enough 99 percent of the people I meet have scant regard for\nentertaining me, it seems I’m too old too slow too quiet and just wrong\nAnd I’m glad. In their cocaine fuelled electronic cabarets I’ll be the man at the bar drinking overpriced whiskey from a bar maid who’s to good to catch my eye\nShe only works here two nights a week, the rest of the time she’s a singer in a rock and roll band\nI bet she’d change her tune if I told her my album had peaked at number 172 and\nthat I also had friends who worked in bars and that didn’t define who they are\nThough it certainly helps their capacity to drink\nBut I’ve strayed off the subject\nNow I’ll be leaning over and waking you up, and you’ll squint at me through the\ncracks between your eyelids, woozy with cider\nAs if you’re asking exactly where we are and exactly what I wanted\nAnd I’ll be happy because we won’t be taking anything too seriously