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When I was about 18 I lived in Sheffield but I travelled to Leeds Tiffanies at least 3 days a week to play bass in the resident band. On each journey we would pass Woolley Edge Services on the motorway and I always thought it was a great off-the-wall name for a Motorway Services.
Cut to decades later and as I was driving through Yorkshire again, when the lyric '25 miles from Woolley Edge, left the fuel gauge in the red'. This sounded like a very rock and roll line and I immediately rhymed it with ‘Got a circle of lights before my eyes, and a stranger in my bed’. It sounded very Dylan-esque to me and it does sound very funny if you sing it with his swooping type of vocal phrasing! Try the next line: ‘I knew she would never forgive me, for the things I haven’t done' with a Dylan voice and you will see what I mean.
This song is pure Al Steele so I was surprised when James suggested it should go on the latest Korgis album. Once we had worked on a middle 8 together and he had tried out a vocal, it did all of a sudden sound much more like it would fit. He has the kind of voice that makes a song his own.
The lyrics for this song came so easily that I reckon I could have written 20 verses(!) as this character has a lot of faults, one being a chip on his shoulder about as big as a small continent! Nevertheless when Ceri asked me who it was about, I did reply that there was a fair bit of me in there. Anyone that knows me well, will have at some point been on the end of my ‘Loaded Tongue’!
In case you don't know it - here is the video
…And here is a run down of these lyrics.
25 miles from Woolley Edge, Left the fuel gauge in the red
Got a circle of lights before my eyes, [I had recently had an Ocular Migraine which manifests itself as a circle of bright lights] And a stranger in my bed [this stranger is not someone you don't know, but rather a person you no longer know. I liked the double meaning]
I knew she never would forgive me, For the things I haven't done [here he is not claiming innocence, but knows there were things he really SHOULD have done]
So now I'm peering out on the end of the world
With a grudge and a loaded tongue, yeah I got a
Grudge and a loaded tongue
And I've only just begun
Let me tell you now...
Every man has an invisible line, Pre-drawn in the sand [We all know about the lines we draw that your partner should never cross]
If you try to cross it, the tide will wash it, Away with your perfect plan [and here is the punishment!]
The endless spiral will take you down, Where Deuteronomy can read like fun [Doesn't EVERYONE know that Deuteronomy is a book in the Old Testament?!… it seems not.. about 50/50 I reckon. It's a fun book with the death of Moses etc]
Open the gates I'm coming on through
CHORUS
She's been waiting, Watching for a sign [Here is the partner who should have left him years ago!]
To guide her through the night, All outta sight
Hope dissipating, She followed the star this far [in for a penny in for a pound]
Still she waits for you
Give it up give it up
No-one likes a quitter[I heard about a guy who made his own warnings to stick on cigarette packets. ‘No-on likes a quitter’ was my fav!]
Give it up give it up
Throw your lover out with the litter [a retake on the line ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’]
Give it up give it up
Look for another babysitter
I never should have bit her with a Grudge and a loaded tongue [impossible to not see the image of him ACTUALLY biting the babysitter}
No I never should have bit her with a Grudge and a loaded tongue
Perhaps I never should have bit her with a Grudge and a loaded tongue
And I've only just begun
SOLO
You can take your rainbow, Your skies of blue,
Stick 'em where there's no shining sun [there are just too many happy people in the world, including me!}
I got an empty cup, That I'll never give up
and this
CHORUS
![](http://d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/275017/1ebee42ab0fd8121b974ad59dfd8bab3ad0a9f72/original/woolley-edge.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==)
It's great fun to write about extreme characters, as you can be as over the top as you like, and you always have the get out… ‘IT’S NOT ME'!
Why don't you try it sometime!