Songwriter: Ben Watt Tracey Thorn

Producer: Everything But The Girl

[Chorus]
Gabriel, wherever you roam
You know the longest way around is the shortest way home
Gabriel, wherever you go
You know the longest way around is the shortest way home

[Verse 1]
When you were here there was a beating of wings
In your heart doing senseless things
When you were here there was a forest fire
Raging in you like a wild desire

[Chorus]
But Gabriel, wherever you roam
You know the longest way around is the shortest way home

[Bridge]
Everything you did only skimmed the surface of the day
And deep inside there was an emptiness that would not go away
Gabriel
Gabriel (Yeah)
Gabriel

[Verse 2]
When you were here there was a forest fire
Raging in you like a wild desire
When you were here there was a beating of wings
In your heart doing senseless things

[Chorus]
But Gabriel, wherever you roam
You know the longest way around is the shortest way home (Yeah)
The longest way around is the shortest way home
The shortest way home
Gabriel

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.