Everything But The Girl

Songwriter: Paul Overstreet

Producer: Ben Watt

[Verse 1]
There's my easy chair
Just sittin' there
I've spent a lotta time
Thinkin' 'bout this perfect love
I know is yours and mine
And oh how I love
That old picture on the wall
Of you and me and the kids
My most favorite times in life
I've spent right here where we live

[Chorus]
There's no place like home
There's no place like home
It just hit me as I was leaving
There's no place like home

[Verse 2]
From the bedroom
I smell perfume
Your favorite kind I wore
And it brings back memories
Of all those nights
Behind our bedroom door
And the saddest thing
I think I've ever seen
Was my closet all cleaned out
It's sad to think
That one must leave
'Cause we can't work things out

[Chorus]
There's no place like home
There's no place like home
It just hit me as I was leaving
There's no place like home

[Bridge]
So baby say that I can stay
For just a day or so
Then maybe I can change your mind
And I won't have to go

[Verse 3]
Just look into
These baby blues
And tell me it's okay
I love that smile
It drives me wild
No love won't die today

[Outro]
There's no place like home
There's no place like home

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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No Place Like HomeEverything But The Girl

Everything But The Girl

Idlewild