Everything But The Girl

Songwriter: Tracey Thorn Ben Watt

Producer: Robin Millar

[Verse 1]
Show me something worse
Than a child outside a church
Begging with a cardboard box
In a heartless town that hurts and mocks
And on a chair anywhere
I will sit down and cry
And close my eyes

[Verse 2]
Against the Christmas windows
Here in Christmas town
A young girl rests her tattered head
And the festive lights shine down
And if she were a kitten
Someone would take her home
But we've no pity for our own kind
Our hearts are stone
Our eyes are blind and

[Chorus]
Show me something more
Than the wolf at the door
All the begging in the cold
To keep the wolf from the fold
Show me something more
Than an honest girl turned thief or whore
Under African sun or Dublin rain
Necessities remain the same

[Verse 3]
On the roof of the old wood shed
The moon rested its pale head
Cast a woman on a screen
Who saw something she'd never seen
On a chair in hospital
She sat down and cried
And closed her eyes

[Chorus]
Show me something more
Than the wolf at the door
All the begging in the cold
To keep the wolf from the fold
Show me something more
Than an honest girl turned thief or whore
Under African sun or Dublin rain
Necessities remain the same
Show me something more
Than the wolf at the door
All the begging in the cold
To keep the wolf from the fold
Show me something more
Than an honest girl turned thief or whore
Under African sun or Dublin rain
Necessities remain the same

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

Love Not Money

From the album

Love Not Money (1985)

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Everything But The Girl

Love Not Money