Redvers Bailey - Sixteens Lyrics

Redvers Bailey – Sixteens Lyrics

Diana and mother Teresa went the same weekend
Someone somewhere drank too much
Was ejected with his friends from the Brunswick pool table
He fell and grazed his chin
Claimed the bouncers pushed him
As lying is not a sin
For someone who is injured by the shards of shattered dreams
Reason to the unreasonable is as precious as life coaching from sweet sixteens

We elected a new leader
A teenage perfect storm
Danced to vintage soul
Made mad love ‘neath the stars
We argued on your birthday
Was the day that I left town
Still my ghost is haunting our favourite places even now
We could have cut the atmosphere had we had a laser beam
We caught the same bus out that day
I remember I was sulking like a sweet sixteen

Adam repaired the glasshouse while Eve is with John Wayne
Her babies have grown up now
The tables turned again
I hear fathers everywhere talking to their sons
Take a glimpse into the future
Look at your girlfriends mum
I’m supposed to be a man now
Always acting mean
I’m as soft as the first tears upon the faces of sweet sixteens

A bad prime minister in a pop up tent camping VIP
Invited vampires into artist entrance 3
They’re drinking all the profits and voting with their feet
But the votes don’t win elections
It’s the counters decide the seats
And when you left it changed me
I learned some self esteem
Went back in time and met you for the first time as a sweet sixteen

I still adore my home town although she bellows that I’ve changed
My childhood can remember the trees I carved my name
Life’s brilliant series of misunderstandings flies so fast
To look at those old photographs is living in the past
Now kids divorce their mothers while they’re drunk on puberty
You only get one childhood and I’m trapped now as an adult
Still my soul is sweet sixteen

That Hackney bar’s green parrot called you my last date’s name
Danced endlessly into oblivion then walked the walk of shame
I prayed you didn’t notice but choked upon my drink
And you just sang along to vampire weekend and wiped beer from my cheek
There’s nothing quite as tragic as an old man with a dream
I’ll hope that I’m inseparable from mine as lovers
Sweet sixteens

Redvers Bailey © 2014

[Lyrics to Sixteens by Redvers Bailey]