Skint & Demoralised - 65 Roses

a stay of execution since childhood.
when we met, she was forty
plus a few.
a mindset, governed by mortality.
a kaleidoscope filter
cast upon the view.

Mondays in Chelsea.
cakes and carbonara.
gliding down the King's Road:
tutu and tiara.
Tuesdays in Sheffield,
an afternoon spent feline.
hours watching butterflies,
the daily worries flutter by.

i was a boy. she was beyond
anyone who'd offered me a bond.
she was the Shankly
to my Kop.
when she offered me her wisdom,
i could've drowned in a drop.

Wednesday, in the studio:
belting out with borrowed lungs.
harmonies from Motown.
within weeks, they're on Radio 1.
Thursday, in the hospital,
another clipboard diagnosis.
she'd ring us, unphased
with two fingers raised.
finally, on Friday,
Fish & Chips at Whitley Bay.
tomato ketchup on her cheek.
another wave, another week.

i was a boy, and then i grew.
she nurtured me,
with everything she knew.
sleeping on the sofa when the stairs were too much,
but when i came home limping,
she was my crutch.
Tracey, this oracle:
this bastion of strength.
if there were nine winning scratch-cards,
she was the tenth.

we're here for a good time, not a long time,
she sang until the end.
when i realised: time
is the biggest fortune that we spend.

4am phone calls.
G&Ts for breakfast.
she'd call me a silly fucker
then hold my head against her necklace.
drinking like my granddad
at twenty years old.
it went from tongues in arseholes
to shoulders turning cold.

a world of woes engulfed me.
landing with a thud.
beside my narcissistic bubble,
Tracey's coughing blood.
it seems you only see the pinnacle
with hindsight as a gift.
and only gain perspective
when you're fully cut adrift.

Robbie Williams medleys.
rainbow tights and glitter.
cock jokes, and box sets
devoured in a day.
sixty-five roses.
forty-seven years.
wherever i go, it was Tracey
who sent me
on my way.

Written by:
David Gledhill, Matthew Abbott

Publisher:
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management

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