Yard Act - Tall Poppies lyrics

[Intro] Yeah [Verse 1] He was the most handsome in a class of twenty-two And he knew it early on so his confidence kept growing By thirteen he had been with every girl deemed worth it To be with in the village, two years either side of his birthday He played football, boy, could he play He played every single day and he still does A scout from Crewe Alexander came to watch him once And they said that they were gonna be in touch [Verse 2] He was the captain of the team without ever asking to be Without ever being told that counts for a lot, still, believe it or not Lo and behold, everyone fell in line behind the hair on his legs and hair on lip He was the- [Verse 3] He could smoke ten a day and still run faster Than that whippet that could lap the racetrack rabbit He could dabble in the snow, rubbing shoulders with the rabble And still never ever touch upon a habit At age sixteen, he made his choice to stay And got a job selling houses in the village Which by now had become such a desirable place to settle down It was classed not as a village, but instead as a small town On the sunny, sunny side of the borough You get two brown bins [Verse 4] Fortunately, despite the influx of newcomers including, for the first time A genuine authentic Italian restaurant Run by a family of fantastic old school Neapolitans He was still the best at football, and most handsome man Taking solace in that fact as his little world continued To expand Woo [Verse 5] By the time he was twenty, he'd now been with all the girls deemed worth it in the village Five years either side of his birthday But it was time to settle down and no kiss had ever felt so electric As the first he'd ever felt all those years ago Though she'd never strayed far, hemmed in by his shadow The torches lining the path of her own dreams had been growing dimmer by the day and so Faster than a dying star, she cashed in her chips and checked out Settled for him and subsequently threw all her own ambitions away [Verse 6] A promotion followed, a mortgage, a marriage A dog and children, a loft conversion A dead dog, and a second home on the Costa del Sol In the hopes of stoking the coals of two long lost souls Which comes first, counselling or keys in the bowl? Puts his own mother in a home Got made redundant twice, never once was he on the dole [Verse 7] A light head, black spots on his vision, room spinning Clutching the curtain, waving from the window, they thought he was grinning He was grimacing, begging them to notice him, twitching, notice no one is helping him The grandkids waving through the rear windshield As the big electric gate draws a line in between 'em A fine, fine line between benign and malignant So get yourself checked, book yourself an appointment So get yourself checked, book yourself an appointment So get yourself checked, book yourself an appointment So get yourself checked, book yourself [Verse 8] The whole village and most of the town came out to mourn his end A full house, he would've been so proud Knowing that no one said a bad word about him aloud He wasn't perfect, but he was my friend He wasn't perfect, but he was one of us He was one of us A plaque bears his full name on a bench by the water's edge The dates he came and went And a quote about life and death from a song he'd never heard 'Cause he wasn't too fond of long songs with lots of words If I were him, I'd have never left the village either But I did, and I know full well That there are more handsome men and better footballers out there in Greater Manchester They would've cut him down to size if they could've But what good would that do? He bloomed and he grew and grew, and still he was doomed Same as me, same as you Same as everyone ever knew You, sometimes still, I think about you Out there, somewhere, floating in the ether Born dyed in the wool, never knowing of a belly half full So many of us just crabs in a barrel With no feasible means to escape the inevitable cull There are those that grow thick skins quick for the sake of their sins And the savvy folk that just keep their mouths shut and take it all on the chin We collide with each other, we submit, we bare our teeth Catch fish using giant metal ships and scream with laughter At 4:00 AM staggering home down moonlit country lanes We cry because children are dying across the sea And there is nothing we can do about it Whilst we benefit from the bombs dropped which we had no part in building We are sorry, truly we are sorry We are just trying to get by too