image A Prayer To Old Idols She lived across the landing in the year of the miners' strike, sold tickets at the picture-house where no-one'd ever go. It was a long, hot summer, swans died in the heat, she wore her hair in a beehive.....I'd sweep up at the barber's dreaming of fame beneath a gilt-framed picture of a fox-hunting scene, I had a headful of secrets and a heartful of dreams. She was as lovely as a poppy abloom in a ditch, the loveliest I'd ever seen..... I prayed to old idols for my youth back again, in a chicken-and rib joint I declared my love, She laughed at the way my shoes squeaked when I walked And I touched her face and she let me.... We went for a walk, she lost her shoe in a stream, we watched a glider swoon in the blue, blue beyond, she swam like a mermaid right round Keeper's Pond, Ah, God bless that September.... Then came one day, a damp, smoky dusk, she said I'm going away, don't ask me why, I just must. And pain struck me dumb on that waterlogged hill, Struck me down like the sword of Jehovah..... I sat out that autumn in so many dingy pubs till I took to the roads one cold December night All that I took was a snapshot of her, I left the lights on and the front door wide open, I've been all over the world these past twenty years and I've fallen in love maybe a handful of times. But my quest drives me on and I'll never stop 'Cos I know that one day I'll find her....... [ Back ]