Closer to You - Momus

And maybe you’re the Circle Line girl

trying so hard not to let on you know

I’m looking at the way your toes poke out through your sandals

at funny angles to your feet

and how you know it turns me on

Or maybe you’re the Spanish girl

playing with your hair as you wait for your friend

in that wild octagon of mirrors the Tate calls a coffee shop

And I can smell that hair from here

and I can see from eight different angles

the way your nipples look through that thin black cotton top

reflected to infinity

And oh God, it’s places like that and purple-tipped prose like this

that’s going to hemorrhage me, girl

Ooo, it’s true:

Girl, I’m only doing it to be closer to you

Or maybe you’re the bay window girl

in Wandsworth Town, in ripped jeans and open Venetians

painting the difficult corner of an empty room

white under a naked bulb

leaning across the bar at the top of your stepladder

at the precise moment I’m passing on the steep street

at the bottom of your garden in the gathering night

voyeur’s delight

Ooo, it’s true:

Girl, I’m only doing it to be closer to you

Or maybe you’re the foundation painter

at the Central School, looking so fine-boned

I could carry you home in your portfolio case

laced up gently so you won’t cry out on the bus

and give the game away

tied up lightly, because girl

how could I knowingly injure someone

with your perfect lips and wrists, your exquisite structure

Oh, little acrylic painter, I can kiss eggshells, I can be ginger

all the critics say I’m such a sensitive singer

Ooo, it’s true:

Girl, I’m only doing it to be closer to you

And maybe you’re listening to my voice now

on your Walkman or your bedsit Dansette

letting my songs slip into you on this quiet night

in with your pads of doodles and your fingers full of pencils

and low tar cigarettes

And the music’s light and pleasant so you hardly notice

what I’m singing about in «Paper Wraps Rock»

And «Murderers, the Hope of Women,»

my voice is just a sound that pleases you

that enters you and leaves you just the same

and that’s how I want it to stay, because, you know

Ooo, it’s true:

Girl, I’m only doing it to be closer to you

But some of those were bitter records

records which accuse women, girls like you

of using your attractiveness wantonly and willfully

to trap and to paralyze men

who wanted you and could never have you

men who sometimes felt the perverse urge

to trash the women they desired the most

men who imagined they despised all those immaculate visions

what adolescent crap, what kind of idiot would sing that?

Oh, not me because, you know

Ooo, it’s true:

Girl, I’m only doing it to be closer to you

But sometimes I think that every man who writes

every man who paints or composes, deep soul or symphonies

it makes no difference, all those men are only making do with substitutes:

Solomon, Confucius, Franz Kafka

they’d never have done it if they’d been as beautiful as you

sitting cross-legged there with gentle music

lapping around a promise, there where your thighs meet

of fertility a million artists couldn’t compete with

Ooo, it’s true:

Girl, I’m only doing it to be closer to you

And all the time I see you there

in the eye of my mind, and all that cheap macho stuff

about de Sade and misogyny vanishes into thin air

and I’m moved to tears just like any other sucker

who’s been bruised by all the things that weren’t to be

and yet who’s ready to fall down on his knees

in front of a woman, and say:

«Whatever you may do, whatever you may be to me

despite the times we disagree, your ridiculous ambitions

your conventional inhibitions

I want you to know that I respect you

I accept you and I want you to accept me

I want to kiss you, kiss your stockinged knee

accept the uniquely soft flesh

on the undersides of your hips,»

Ooo, it’s true:

Girl, I’m only doing it to be closer to you

And when I’ve won you

when I’ve fallen down in front of you, and said:

«Damn Franz Kafka, damn the Thin White Duke

(damn the Thin White Duke)

it’s you and you alone I’m doing this for,»

When I’m through with heroes and pastiche

(throwing darts in lovers' eyes)

when you’ve let me make love to you

the slowest, deepest way that I know how

(when you do that for me, baby)

and it feels so good (bear with me)

that’s when I’ll think of Paul Klee’s epitaph:

«Here lies the painter Paul Klee

somewhat closer than usual to the heart of creation

but far from close enough,»

And girl, here I lie

far from close enough to you…