Songwriter: Tracey Thorn Ben Watt

Producer: Mike Hedges Everything But The Girl

You will be a star
And I will be so jealous when you are
But you'll always be a fool
So I will catch you when the world is cruel

And though dizzy heights are on your mind
Oh honey please don't leave me behind

You think it's so easy
But listen, oh they once said the same to me
And you'll be loved for sure
But I think I will always deserve it more

And when you fall I think you'll find
That you never really left me behind
Don't leave me behind

While you're down here I will be kind
Tell everyone that to my mind
You should be being wined and dined
So don't forget me and don't leave me behind

Everything But The Girl

Originating at the turn of the 1980s as a leader of the lite-jazz movement, Everything but the Girl became an unlikely success story more than a decade later, emerging at the vanguard of the fusion between pop and electronica.

Founded in 1982 by Hull University students Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt, the duo took their name from a sign placed in the window of a local furniture shop, which claimed “for your bedroom needs, we sell everything but the girl.” At the time of their formation, both vocalist Thorn and songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Watt were already signed independently to the Cherry Red label; Thorn was a member of the sublime Marine Girls, while Watt had issued several solo singles and also collaborated with Robert Wyatt.

Everything but the Girl debuted in 1982 with a samba interpretation of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day”; the single was a success on the U.K. independent charts, but the duo nonetheless went on hiatus as Thorn recorded a solo EP, A Distant Shore, while Watt checked in with the full-length North Marine Drive in 1983. EBTG soon reunited to record a cover of the Jam’s “English Rose” for an NME sampler; the track so impressed former Jam frontman Paul Weller that he invited the duo to contribute to the 1984 LP Cafe Bleu, the debut from his new project, the Style Council.