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British SummertimeEverything But The Girl

Songwriter: Ben Watt Tracey Thorn

Producer: Everything But The Girl

[Verse 1]
Leaving at dawn to beat the traffic
Do you remember that too?
Curled asleep on the back seat
Do you remember that too?

[Verse 2]
The soundless dark, the empty road
Do you remember that too?
And that child asleep, only eight years old
Do you recognise as you?

[Bridge]
June, July, September
Stretched ahead and out of view
The whole world seemed a safe place
And never ending too

[Verse 3]
But it was never as simple as you thought
There were just things you never knew
And up ahead your parents bore the weight
Of all their worries and yours too

[Bridge]
Windows down on the coast road
Wanting to be first to see the sea
The whole world seemed a safe place
Temporarily

[Verse 4]
But it was never as simple as you thought
And you found out as you grew
That up ahead your parents had borne the weight
Of all their worries and yours too
All their worries and yours too

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.

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