Released: September 27, 1999

Songwriter: Tracey Thorn Ben Watt

Producer: Ben Watt

[Verse 1]
Suburbia, 1 am, you're walking home again
Shopping bags and broken glass
I hate going through the underpass
I wish there was some other way around
But you got beaten up by the playground and it's no use
We'll have to go through the suburban shopping centre
Pedestrian walkways I think they were meant to
Make things better
But it's just emptier, and scary at nighttime
Hatfield at that time

[Chorus]
This is the place I live
Where is everyone? Are we the only ones?
This is the place I live
And so does everyone, so does everyone

[Verse 2]
Hatfield 1980
I'm seeing my first knife, my first ambulance ride
I hold your hand the whole way, crying
Get home the next day, police have already been
Well you can imagine the scene

[Chorus]
And if I'm going home, I better change my clothes
I better change my clothes
And if I'm going home, I better change my clothes
I better change my clothes

[Chorus]
This is the place I live
Where is everyone, are we the only ones?
This is the place I live
And so does everyone, so does everyone

[Outro]
And when I'm looking back, I look for everyone
And when I fall down, I fall for anyone
When I'm looking back, I look for everyone
And when I fall down, I fall for anyone

Everything But The Girl

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.