Everything But The Girl was how musician Ben Watt and singer Tracey Thorn styled themselves and I adore them. The group started in the neo-jazz groove of the mid-80s and morphed into a spectacular dance band in the 90s. But it is Thorn's voice that has always been front and center, no matter what the music style. Watt and Thorn wrote some stunning lyrics and although I narrowed down the list, I couldn't choose between these final two. They both resonate with me personally. "Hatfield 1980" could be about the suburban city I moved to in 1980 when my family came to California from the east coast. It was a rather savage working class/middle class area. And I did get beaten up by the playground (I am sure every adult gay man has such a survival story)--but that was the least of the violence hurled at me during my time there.
"Hatfield 1980"
by Everything But The Girl
Suburbia, 1 am
You're walking home again
Shopping bags and broken glass
I hate going through the underpass
I wish there was some other way around
But you got beaten up by the playground
And it's no use
You'll have to go through
Suburban shopping centre
Pedestrian walkways
I think they were meant to make things better
But it's just emptier
And scary at night-time
Hatfield,... at that time
This is the place I live
Where is everyone? Are we the only ones?
This is the place I live
And so does everyone, and so does everyone
Hatfield 1980
I'm seeing my first knife
My first ambulance ride
I hold your hand the whole way, crying
Get home the next day
Police have already been
Well, you can imagine the scene
And if I'm going home
I better change my clothes, I better change my clothes
This is the place I live
Where is everyone? Are we the only ones?
This is the place I live
And so does everyone, and so does everyone
When I'm looking back I look for everyone
And when I fall down I fall for anyone
When I'm looking back I look for everyone
And when I fall down I fall for anyone
I don't live in that city anymore, but over the decades, like most suburban areas of the San Francisco Bay Area, the city in question has become gentrified and is now quite upscale. I still live here in the Bay Area and if I have reason to go there or pass through, I marvel at how incredibly different it looks and feels. But there are those of us who recall it before...
I have a soft spot for this next song for, again, several personal reasons. It came out around the time a very influential and important friend in my life died. After her death I would drive past her house in Berkeley and think, just like the lyrics to this song, "...but you don't live there anymore."
And to make matters worse, there is another layer. I stayed here in California when my parents moved back to the east coast in the late 90s; my mom wrote me regular letters and closed once with a quote from the song: "I miss you like the deserts miss the rain." She and my father passed away a year later.
Yes, missing....as in "yearning for," but also as in "disappeared."
"Missing"
by Everything But The Girl
I step off the train
I'm walking down your street again
And past your door, but you don't live there anymore
It's years since you've been there
Now you've disappeared somewhere like outer space
You've found some better place
And I miss you, like the deserts miss the rain
And I miss you, like the deserts miss the rain
Could you be dead?
You always were two steps ahead of everyone
We'd walk behind while you would run
I look up at your house
And I can almost hear you shout down to me
Where I always used to be
And I miss you like the deserts miss the rain
And I miss you like the deserts miss the rain
Back on the train, I ask why did I come again?
Can I confess, I've been hanging round your old address?
And the years have proved
To offer nothing since you've moved
You're long gone, but I can't move on
And I miss you like the deserts miss the rain
And I miss you like the deserts miss the rain
And I miss you
I step off the train
I'm walking down your street again
And past your door, I guess you don't live there anymore
It's years since you've been there
Now you've disappeared somewhere like outer space
You've found some better place
And I miss you
And I miss you
You found some better place
And I miss you like the deserts miss the rain
And I miss you, yeah, like the deserts miss the rain
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