Album: The Stage Names (2007)

A Girl In Port

Let fall your soft and swaying skirt
Let fall your shoes, let fall your shirt
I'm not the ladykilling sort
Enough to hurt a girl in port

Marie's gone blonde and lost a stone
She lay on her lawn, spun and alone
And, when the morning sun it rose
Upon Marie in her lacy clothes

It lit her up, and she walked around
The winding streets of Camden Town
She don't know who she wants to be
And if I knew, I'd tell Marie

Let fall your soft and swaying skirt
Let fall your shoes, let fall your shirt
I'm not the ladykilling sort
Enough to hurt a girl in port

Cindy tells me she's had fun
Sitting backstage, someone's plus one
Up in her room the records spin
Needle in the grooves that she's worn thin

She lifts a sleeve and she sees a name
And she's got a smile on her face
And she's got a story you can't see
It's just between that name and Cindy

And before Holly made her way
Over the sea and far away
She's telling me, inside her car
Driving us back from the Crystal Corner bar

"I lost it there, I fell from health
Cut some fresh pieces from myself."
And then, for a second, something in me
Said, "Leave today. It's time, Holly."

Well, I'm a weak and lonely sort
Though I'm not sailing just for sport
I've come to feel, out on the sea
These urgent lives press against me

I'm just a guest. I'm not a part
With my tender head, with my easy heart
These several years out on the sea
Have made me empty, cold, and clear. Pour yourself into me

Let fall your soft and swaying skirt
Let fall your shoes, let fall your shirt
I'm not the ladykilling sort
Enough to hurt a girl in port