Southend On Sea - Mark Eitzel

This summer the sun was a shotgun pointed down at me

And I was just another ugly American melting in the heat

Watching the stagnant ocean breathe painfully

It only wants to drag you down by your feet

No one swimming in the water

No sharks, no eels, no little life boats

Just a history lesson and some two bit Victorian ghosts

Who do a turn at the pirate ship

Singing, «It's A Small World After All»

Either you laugh at it, baby

Or you hit a brick wall

You said to me

«You're from California

And you laugh too easily»

You said to me

«You just let things happen

That are killing me»

We’re like whitefish beached all day on hot parking lots

Waiting for the summer parade to sadly drift by

Melancholy floats filled with suicides and drooping paper flowers

A defeated army and no wind to blow away the smell of surrender

There was '50s nostalgia and horrifying Flintstone characters

Living memorials to wasted days and wasted bitter nights

And everyone on the promenade participates in your silence

Cause I’m always wrong, baby, and you’re always right

You said to me

«You're from California

And you’re as dumb as can be»

You said to me

«Are you the Scarecrow, the Tin Man

Or are you Dorothy»

You said to me

«I'm beginning to think that you’re

A part of the enemy»

You said to me

«If I was drowning would you save me

From Southend-on-Sea»

From Southend-on-Sea

There was a chamber of horrors

And it was packed with onlookers

Wax figured day trippers being tortured

Worse than their crimes deserved

And there I was in a stranglehold spinning out

From your nightmare

And my life with you was a black cloud hanging in the air

And you said to me

«You're from California

And you lie too easily»

You said to me

«Did you really think that this was

Going to set my heart free»

You said to me

«I'm beginning to think that you’re

A part of the enemy»

Part of the enemy

You said to me

«If I was drowning would you save me

From Southend-on-Sea»

From Southend-on-Sea