Everything But The Girl

Songwriter: Tracey Thorn Ben Watt

Producer: Robin Millar

[Verse 1]
Hush your mouth now honey mine
Have you been waiting all this time
To so loudly disagree
Kick the feet from under me?
Did you come here to shoot me down
Bury me on my own home ground?
Oh, my own home ground

[Verse 2]
Hold your tongue now mother mine
For you've held it all this time
And now's no time to shout and swear
That you despise the things I care about
For your territory
Will always be miles and miles from me
From me, miles and miles from me, hey

[Verse 3]
Stop my mouth with kisses dear
Forever they will keep me here
And these drunken blasphemies
Must never make us enemies
For we'll have to meet once more
Sober and as strongly bound as before
As before, as strongly bound as before, hey

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)

Everything But The Girl popular songs

Shoot Me DownEverything But The Girl

Everything But The Girl

Love Not Money