Everything But The Girl

Songwriter: Tracey Thorn Ben Watt

Producer: Mike Hedges Everything But The Girl

[Verse 1]
Well it's so easy to be witty in retrospect
When you're out the door you pause a moment to reflect
On all the crushing one-liners that you should have said
But you always were reduced to angry words instead

[Chorus]
Fighting talk on the stairs
Is enough to show who never cared
Fighting talk, who will be spared
The abuse that's always hurled as you curse and swear?

[Verse 2]
But it's so cruel how the moment can let you down
And how eloquence deserts you
When you find yourself on sensitive ground
You slam the door and turn the catch
You turned our home into a prison
Conversation to a slanging match

[Chorus]
And fighting talk on the stairs
Is enough to show who never cared
Fighting talk, who will be spared
The abuse that's always hurled as you curse and swear?

[Bridge]
Oh, but oh my love I'm sick and tired
Of all the cruelty love's acquired
We never more need come to harm
If you lay your head here on my faithless arm

[Chorus]
And fighting talk on the stairs
Is enough to show who never cared
Fighting talk, who will be spared
The abuse that's always hurled as you curse and swear?

[Outro]
(Fighting talk on the stairs)
Fighting talk
(Fighting talk, fighting talk)
Fighting talk
Fighting talk

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.

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Fighting TalkEverything But The Girl

Everything But The Girl

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