(Words and music: (c) Robin Hill except where stated)
"They were only words, and what were words?"
"Gobsmacked" was my fifth completed collection. It's loosely themed around subjects such as shyness and loneliness. Many of the songs are among my earliest. In many ways, therefore, the collection can be viewed simply as a chronicle of what it was to be a teenager in the 1970s, along with the various somewhat dubious attitudes that entails. Neverthess, there's a definite move from some of the gloom-laden angst of previous collections, towards something a little more relaxed and light hearted.
At the time, "Sophie On The Beach" was a firm favourite of mine, as well of being only one of a small handful I could play with a moderate degree of competence.
PAGE HISTORY:
Page added August 2004 - Notes added March 2019 - Scores and Tabs added Febnruary 2021
No audio samples available yet. These will follow soon.
All words (and music) are copyrighted. Any adaptation or duplication without consent is a breach of copyright.
CHANCES
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(Words and music: Robin Hill)
How
much I fancy all my chances now,
When all the other guys
Have melted into nothing on the floor
Within your longing eyes;
You have no need to speak the fancy thoughts
You have of you and I:
Your nervous smile has told me all I need
To plan this evening by.....
===
This world would be a shadow of its former spinning self,
The powder would have faded in the sunshine;
The country lanes much longer now, the green fields lined with
flowers,
And each would bow to kiss your feet in Summertime,
Daisy chains begin anew, and hold their strength so well,
The patterns in your gowns would never run,
The trees would sigh sweet nothings in the gentle morning breeze,
As all of natures forces join to one;
The birds would fly back north again to where the harvest grows,
And you and I would join them in their flight;
Two ordinary beings then would find immortal frames
In which to house their intricate delight.....
===
Of course, it might be that my simple dreams
Are doomed to self destruction from the start,
Your smile, my beacon, never all it seems,
Its trophy never quite your heart;
And, as any fool romantic knows,
A broken dream is nothing new;
But your smile reminds me of the way it goes,
That sometimes, just sometimes, dreams come true.....
PASSING HOURS
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(Words and music: Robin Hill)
Do
you see me at the fireside in the evening light,
Alone, but do you see my half lit face?
Do you sense me kneel beside you,
Do you feel the thrill inside you,
Do our shadows join to one in warm embrace?
Do you see me hold my pillow tight, making love at night,
In my lonely bed, are you with me nonetheless?
Do you feel my arms around you,
Can you feel their strength surround you,
Does your body feel each gentle soft caress?
===
Life is just a daydream, hope is just a fake,
But darling, you`re in every move I make;
Our love is just a fantasy, our passion make believe,
But darling, you`re in every breath I breathe.
The truth is so confusing, but one thing`s always true,
Oh darling, you`re in everything I do.
===
Have you seen me waking up to face the morning bright,
Have you heard me singing badly in the shower?
Every minute spent without you
Is a minute thought about you,
And you`re with me nonetheless each passing hour.
ELASTIC MAN
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(Words and music: Robin Hill)
He`s
planned his course of action rather well
And gives himself a pat upon the back:
A touch of wit to break down her defences,
And then the charming stuff, till she surrenders.
So jokes learned back to front and front to back,
And nothings built to crack her female senses,
He sets out armed to launch the big attack,
With victory in his sights, prepared to tell
Her she`s tremendous.
He seems to be no different today,
But the door on which his anxious knuckles rap
Echoes that he`s no ordinary fella:
He feels the tension now like tight elastic,
The tension of a man about to snap,
The tension of a man who`s going to tell her
That he`s precisely just her kind of chap,
The tension of a man who`s going to say
That she`s fantastic.
But still he knows it all will be no use,
For all that simply nothing can go wrong,
For when he puts his money where his mouth is,
There lurks a fateful twist behind his cunning,
A fateful twist of one who suffers long:
The glib tongue that a coward never rouses
Turns would-be Valentinos to King Kongs,
And they can find no place for the obtuse,
Can the stunning.
It isn`t that he`d mind the curt reproach,
For then at least he`d know the final score
And brace himself to face his relegation,
His tragic loss more easily amended:
But he is not a loser yet for sure,
And tragedy to him is the frustration
And the burning felt through knowing nothing more
Than that a pauper never dares approach
Before the splendid.
UNREQUITED LUST
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(Words and music: Robin Hill)
I
wanted to tell you you`d beautiful eyes,
For they`re deep blue and lovely, like wild Summer skies;
But my opening was squandered,
My attention had wandered
Instead to the beautiful shape of your thighs.....
I wanted to tell you you`d soft sensual lips,
For they`re deep red and luscious, like the claret you sip,
But it all seemed so hopeless,
When I couldn`t but notice
The soft sensual way that you wiggled your hips.....
===
Honesty`s a virtue, I`ve heard tell,
And virtue is its own reward, they say;
Yet if that`s so then perhaps it`s just as well
That I`m not feeling virtuous today;
For if I`d dared be honest now, I`m sure
I`d pick my reward up squarely on the jaw.....
To tell a lie`s immoral, so I`ve heard,
But I`d still tell you lies of sweet romance;
For morality can only be absurd
When if, instead, I chose to take the chance
To tell you that my thoughts were up your skirts,
I think I`d get the moral where it hurts.....
===
I wanted to tell you you`d such lovely hair,
For it`s long soft and gentle, flowing and fair;
But I left it unsaid,
Preferring instead
Just to dream of the loveliness hidden elsewhere.....
YOU'VE GOT TO BE JOKING
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(Words and music: Robin Hill)
That
laugh is madness of a special kind;
The laugh of one who`s free to pick and choose,
To opt for who will win and who will lose.
They strike fools where it hurts most, in the mind;
Not knowing for a minute what they`ve done,
Not realising how the tears will run.
Yet those who suffer most are also blind;
They stake their lives upon a single throw,
Not seeing that elsewhere the odds are low.
For others, far too lonely to ever say No,
To ever break a heart with cocksure ease,
Or pull the strings and feel the ego grow,
Are also those who`ve never said Yes Please.
THE BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE
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(Words and music: Robin Hill)
A
lovely laugh, a gentle smile, a lovely nervous smile,
I wonder if you realise the way they work for you,
I wonder if you realise the dreadful things they do
To one not quite assured enough to read the signs in style.
===
If I was wise, your smiling eyes
Would soothe these stabbing fears;
And I would find I`d left behind
Those long and wasted years;
For if I knew these dreams were true,
I`d take you as my wife;
And count on you to lead me through
The best years of my life......
===
The ultimate frustration in knowing they`re just dreams
Is nothing to the knowledge that sometimes dreams come true,
When I don`t have the simple powers that other lovers do
To know tonight your lovely smile is everything it seems.....
===
If I could find one single line
I`d open up those locks;
My deep alarm subsiding to calm
To quell this paradox;
And if I knew my dreams were true,
I`d take you as my wife;
And count on you to lead me through
The best years of my life.....
SPEECHLESS
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(Words and music: Robin Hill)
I
had to ease the tension
That paralysed my tongue,
But though I chose the surest way
The peace refused to come;
===
And even though they eat my heart,
The aching poems that I write
Will surely never be enough
To link two people worlds apart,
For in the end it sounds so trite,
`Je t`aime`, and all that stuff.
===
It always seemed so simple
When conjured in a dream,
But through the years I`ve learned that things
Are seldom as they seem;
And
though I could have called the names
Of some ten billion suns,
The smog blacked out my mind and I
Could only think of one;
===
And daft romantics such as I,
No matter how their hearts cry out,
Will never get these things off pat
Until they learn how not to cry
In silence as their torture shouts
`I love you`, and all that.
POINT OF NO RETURN
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(Words and music: Robin Hill)
The
descending pathway here gives rise to vegetation
Which complements the lushness of the deep valley floor,
And you, no more adorned by floral decoration,
Must try to find the peace you`re looking for;
===
Sometimes you get so lonely here,
But I could set your conscience clear,
If only you could see the faith you`re missing,
That battle scars are just the price of freedom.
===
For further up the rocks displayed a fine formation,
A tribute to the elements that stripped them bare,
And you can learn to recognise your own salvation,
Remembering to stop when you are there;
===
I know you feel reluctant yet,
But conscience would have no regret
If you could find it`s happiness you`re kissing,
That you can well afford the price of freedom.
===
Let your streamlined strata be your inspiration,
If form bears some relation to the lushness of the soil,
And if you sell me mineral rights my excavation
Would surely leave you rich with gushing oil;
===
If you think of love, not shame,
You`ll find your conscience stays the same,
To build cathedrals deep within your vision:
An altar to the price you paid for freedom.
POTTING THE PINK
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(Music: Robin Hill)
(No lyric)
SOPHIE ON THE BEACH
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(Words and music: Robin Hill)
What
does she dream about?
What do the rising waves portray to her?
What does the rolling thunder say to her?
What lessons do they teach?
And does she bellow out
In constant battle with a creeping tide,
An ebb and flow which rises deep inside
And drains upon the beach?
They seemed so real, perhaps, but now
The tiny pores which kept the sand so vast,
Yet made its grains run through her hands so fast,
Have never seemed so out of reach,
Or is it just, somehow,
The wounds inflicted by a fighting sea
Becoming part of her, inviting me
To join her on the beach?
Perhaps I need to know
That, as the evening wind runs through her hair,
High on the clifftop as I watch her there
It blows the same for each,
That I might safely go
Towards her with a warmer, stronger, hand
And lead her safely back along the sand
In comfort on the beach.
Perhaps, though, every burst
Blows different ways in either face
And stains our brows such that in neither case
Could sea be used to bleach,
Yet still my salty thirst
Would lead me to the wine that feeds the sand:
In my own ebb and flow I need to stand
With Sophie on the beach.
THE SCARECROW
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(Words and music: Robin Hill)
The
stillness of the wind and silence of the naked sky
Bring to these fields a shallow peace, broken only by
A stifled creak of rotting bones which hides a weary sigh
From one who`s long forgotten now,
From one who`s long forgotten now,
From one who`s long forgotten now just how to laugh or cry.
The strength within his one-time heart has failed to pass the
test,
Its freedom, once fantastic, is now fantasy suppressed
In dreams of one not quite so free until she`s been undressed
In rooms where freedom separates,
In rooms where freedom separates,
In rooms where freedom separates the free from all the rest.
And knowing that the would-be free will scare the birds away
Unless they find the magic words to soothe and make them stay,
He`ll ponder long and hard within these fields to find a way
Of calling up the fearless words,
Of calling up the fearless words,
Of calling up the fearless words he knows he needs to say.
Yet words are but a void upon which meanings stand or fall,
And his took air on wispy clouds to float beyond recall,
The meaning aimed to win her heart was never heard at all,
They were only words, and what were words,
They were only words, and what were words,
They were only words, and what were words to she who had it all?
So once more under empty skies the scarecrow stands alone,
His pride contorted by a heart of crumbling weathered stone,
Just dreaming all the while about the times he might have known,
While twisted roots stay silent,
Twisted roots stay silent,
Twisted roots stay silent of the way the wind has blown.
SMILER
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(Words and music: Robin Hill)
Don`t
smile like that, it isn`t kind
To we poor sods who value our peace of mind;
One day some unsuspecting chap
Will catch your smile and start to snap,
A gibbering wreck upon the floor,
He`ll kick at first, but then no more;
There`ll be nothing you can do,
Nothing you can say,
As with a sad smile between his ears,
He`ll sigh, and pass away.....
Don`t smile like that, I just can`t bear
To see such mass destruction everywhere
Of fine young men, in single file,
Just taking turns to watch you smile;
Erstwhile heroes one and all,
But one smile from you, and down they fall;
And there`ll be nothing I can do,
Nothing I can say,
To curb your smile`s destruction
`Til there are no men left to slay.....
Don`t smile like that, you`ll tear apart
One far too young to die of broken heart.....
HERBERT`S SONG (Lady of My Dreams)
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(Words and music: Robin Hill)
I
used to be a champion idiot,
Now though, through great skill,
I`m just a champion:
Perhaps I ought to warn you that I can`t afford the proper gear,
But still I`ll come to save you from your darkest perils, have no
fear,
For kitted with a conker on a string,
A dustbin lid held tightly in my hand,
I`ll pedal like the clappers through the land
To tear you from the clutches of the nasty wicked king
Who forces you to wed against your will.
I used to be a spotty herbert,
Now though, thanks to creams,
I`m just a herbert:
I warn you that, to me, sophistication starts with adding ice,
But I don`t mind you being posh, provided that you watch the
price,
So that, tomorrow, in the Fox and Hounds,
We`ll drink to toast the union of our hearts,
While you admire my talent with the darts;
You needn`t pay a penny, `cos I`ll buy all the rounds
To prove that you`re the lady of my dreams.
(Dedicated to "The Lady of My Dreams" ..... )