Swiss Cottage Manoeuvres (2007 - Remaster)-Al Stewart

On a Christmas cake day one Friday in August In a book shop in Charing Cross Road I first set eyes on a girl and at once I didn't know She had eyes like a poet and hair like a rainbow Reflecting the lights that did glow And the sadness she kept in her eyes Struck my senses a blow And so as by chance at the touch of a glance We could find ourselves out in the road With no crush of time to defeat us and no place to go And I couldn't say how but the coffee bar crowd Had appeared through the silence that broke And she said Ł˘Oh my father's a judge in St Albans you know.Ł˘ Oh well, then perhaps I could help you You know that St. Albans is miles away And I've got a room in Swiss Cottage in which you could stay She laughed Ł˘Oh I couldn't do that, for I've got to be up in the Morning you see.Ł˘ So I rang up to find out the first morning train she could take. And so in the gloom of a candlelit room With spaghetti, two forks and plate She said Ł˘Oh I really would like to be free and escape.Ł˘ Oh well if it's like that, you don't have to go back And you're perfectly welcome to stay Ł˘But I've not finished school yet.Ł˘ she said as she got into bed And so as she slept and the pure morning crept through the windows To take her away I thought you can't make people be what you want them to be I could see my self nailed to a dormitory tale of a holiday night's Escapade And just yesterday she had seemed like a woman to me And so like a child with the sleep in her eyes Where the sadness of age had once been She left on the train with a Ł˘See you againŁ˘ and a smile And I couldn't say what I had won or I lost Or even just what I had seen But when I'm alone I just think of her once in awhile.