Everything But The Girl

Songwriter: Ben Watt

[Verse 1]
All this short summer night long I've been waiting for you
Just to give me a sign that you feel this way too
There are people on the streets for the weekend
But I don't see them
There are others I could meet for the weekend
But I don't hear them

[Chorus]
Talk to me like the sea
Makes me want to get out of the city
Talk to me like the sea
Makes me want to get out of the city

[Verse 2]
I have a dream of an inky blue sea
You could give up your job and go thеre with me
I know we'd miss thе football and the dancing
There's always something
And you worry that the people here would be talking
But that's nothing

[Chorus]
Talk to me like the sea
Makes me want to get out of the city
Talk to me like the sea
Makes me want to get out of the city

[Bridge]
In the morning I sit on the train and wonder
If I can go through all this again you know I
Feel like staying until the end of the line this time
This time, this time, this time
Oh yeah

[Interlude]
We come to fight and dream
In this fairground of a town
Through the sweet and sickly streets
Through the airless undergrounds
While the planes fly out of Heathrow
Taking people late at night
To where the fields are like Australia
In the early morning light

[Chorus]
Talk to me like the sea
Makes me want to get out of the city
Talk to me like the sea
Makes me want to get out of the city

[Outro]
Talk to me like the sea, yeah
Talk to me like the sea
Talk to me like the sea
In the morning I sit on the train
Talk to me like the sea, yeah

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

Worldwide (Deluxe Edition)

From the album

Worldwide (Deluxe Edition) (2013)

Everything But The Girl popular songs

Talk to Me Like the Sea (Live)Everything But The Girl

Everything But The Girl

Worldwide (Deluxe Edition)