Everything But The Girl

Songwriter: Ben Watt

Producer: Robin Millar

[Verse 1]
There's a brown shirt swapped for a thin blue tie
There's a black truth swapped for a thin blue lie
There's a slim man sporting a clean cut dream
There's a slim man courting a wide extreme
There's a fly-blown flag in a dry-bone town
There will be no ships 'cause they've all gone down

[Verse 2]
There's a man with a medal but he'll never sleep
There are guns in his head, they say the war was cheap
There are heaped up dreams on the mounds of slag
There are moped up tears as the hours drag
There's a suitcase gone and there's an empty drawer
There's a broken cup lying on the floor

[Verse 3]
There are questions asked in the house tonight
There's a wife been involved in a pillow fight
There's a husband there who she hardly knows
There's a patched up dream for a winter rose
There's a soft touch finally come to blows

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.

more tracks from the album

Eden

From the album

Eden (1984)

Everything But The Girl popular songs

Soft TouchEverything But The Girl

Everything But The Girl

Eden