A tenement, a dirty street
Walked and worn by shoeless feet
Inside it's long and so complete
Watched by a shivering sun.
Old eyes in a small child's face
Watching as the shadows race
Through walls and cracks and leave no trace
And daylight's brightness shuns.
(Chorus:)
The days of Pearly Spencer - aha
The race is almost run.
Nose pressed hard on frosted glass
Gazing as the swollen mass
On concrete fields where grows no grass
Stumbles blindly on.
Iron trees smother the air
But withering they stand and stare
Through eyes that neither know nor care
Where the grass is gone.
Chorus
Pearly where's your milk white skin
What's that stubble on your chin
It's buried in the rot gut gin
You played and lost not won.
You played a house that can't be beat
Now look your head's bowed in defeat
You walked too far along the street
Where only rats can run.
Chorus (bis*)
*Marc Almond singt zwischen den beiden letzten Refrains noch zwei "optimistischere" Strophen:
A tenement, a dirty street
Remember worn and shoeless feet
Remember how you stood to beat
The way your life had gone.
So Pearly don't you shed more tears
For those best forgotten years
Those tenements are memories
Of where you've risen from.