Your brother’s just grown out of shoplifting
And gotten into girls
Your mum is just a stranger bookending the day
Sat at the table with her head in her hands
After you dad left for the late shift girl in the Yellow River Chinese
She’s only 22, and he says she’s warmed to you
Oh that afternoon your mum went in and tried to break her nose
It’s a rubbish month and everyone at school knows I suppose
But tonight, there’s something in the air
Is it the carbon monoxide settling just inches above you around here?
You get a lift to Ciara’s and you both get dressed together
You’ve got a new concoction,
You can make the doubt fade out
Just like some soap, you can bring the theme song on
And the song you’ve got on is sophistication
It’s easy to forget in the mass exodus
To the toilet’s to do make up, “Anthony’s making me blush”
She says “he bought me a drink and said we should do shots together.
Well I don’t know, he’s nice and all but I much prefer Trevor
With his kind-of shy demeanour”
“Ah, yeah, but his dad’s a mentalist”
She says “I don’t care, I want to get myself into this,
Oh, how I’d like to lose myself to him, he is the one I know it”
She says “Well if he’s the one,
Then I’m Olivia Newton John”
And then she says “Ciara? Won’t you roll a fag for me?
I’m going to make him want me, come on ladies, let’s do sophistication”
He’s in the smoking shelter with his stupid gangly friends
Two of them she’s kissed before and one of them
For weeks on end they thought had got Sarah pregnant
But she was just late
She nearly told her mum and everything
(Here’s tempting fate)
You spark it up, start coughing
(Thank god nobody’s watching)
And the rain is beating on the corrugated plastic awning
And there’s an irritating man requesting identification
But he doesn’t ask you because he knows
That what you’ve brought tonight’s sophistication
“Hi, hi I’m Eloise,
Do you have a light perchance? A lighter for me?
A light for my cigarette?
A light so I can light my cigarette?
Because god knows that I need that nicotine!”
‘Oh, god, I’m blowing it’ she thinks
And as he says “sorry, no”, she nearly knocks Christopher’s drink out of his hand
Those hands that snaked their way up her tights
One night last August
And when they’d kiss he’d thrust and thought that they were making love she thinks
That’s Rebecca’s theory anyway
‘Cause she got with him last Sunday
He did the same to her when they were kissing in the woods
And were discovered by some children on an egg hunt
So much for sophistication
Now she’s talking fast about how she
Might have left her straighteners on but
Surely Ciara’s mum would have rang to say the house burnt down?
And then he says “Oh, Eloise?”
And she says “Yeah, Trevor that’s me”
“Is your dad the one in prison or the one that’s banging Xian Lee?”
Oh no! It’s followed you here, it’s got its fingers on the lower of your back
The fear is here, it found you here
You thought that you could change your clothes,
Smoke a fag, drink a beer, strike a pose
And finally that you could wipe the slate clean with some sweet sophistication
Oh this could have been your chance
Yes, this could have been your chance
But that stupid boy had to ruin it
You’ll fancy someone else tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
But you don’t want to go home
You’d prefer to stay forever in this three walled cubical oh yeah
Laurie Shaw is a Wirral-born songwriter and producer. He now dwells in Ireland where he records from his mountain retreat.
He often gigs in Cork, Dublin and the Merseyside area. He has released around 100 albums to date (all of which are available on request)....more
