POP / Lyric sheets: Tom waits for no man

How would Tom Waits, the gravel-voiced chronicler of American low-life, get on if he lived in north east Essex?

'You can't get any bagels

The coffee tastes of moss

There's no such thing as Satan

Just God bein' slightly cross

There's toothmarks on the Flymo

And Harpic in my beer

And Harry Secombe's

wardrobe

Was launched and modelled here

A burned-out Datsun Cherry

Is smokin' in the street

Some Mucron on the

dashboard

A crossbow on the seat

The shops are World of Darren

And Combat Boots R Us

Potato-U-Relate-To

While-waiting-4-a-bus

You wanna see excitement?

Let's hop a bus to town

It's twenny years ago now

Since Woolworth's got burned down

And people wait here

weekends

Around the Hippodrome

To beat up Blur's lead singer

And let him know he's home

So putcha cap on backwards

And tracksuit bottoms on

We'll go out to an Indian

And fight a man called Ron

Then home by blue-light taxi

For several hours' wait

To wire yer jaws together

And fit yer steel plate

This town ain't got a graveyard

They don't cremate their dead

They sit them on the council

And leave them there instead

So cutcha hair by strimmer

But don't repaint your bike

They dunno much 'bout art here

But they know what they don't like.'