Everything But The Girl

Songwriter: Tracey Thorn

Producer: Mike Hedges Everything But The Girl

Little Hitler, don't come 'round here again
With your renegade politics, redder-than-thou-disdain
Thought we were on the same side
But with a fistful of nails and your knives from the Clyde

You're a little Hitler now
And you'll grow up heaven knows how

Little Hitlers, little Hitlers
Grow up into big Hitlers
Look what they do

Behind ever big man there's a small boy
Drink to Stalin and Hitler and Jimmy Boyle
Hard men get all the catches
Every woman loves a fascist
Come the big day, you'll be OK

You're a little Hitler now
And you'll grow up heaven knows how

Little Hitlers, little Hitlers
Grow up into big Hitlers
And look what they do

You try to scare me with stories of knives
Backstreets and razors and alley-cat's cries
And if you're heartless and hard
Well this made you what you are

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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Little HitlerEverything But The Girl

Everything But The Girl

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