Album: All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (1982)

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• I was just thirty-four years old and I was still wandering in a haze
  I was wondering why everyone I met seemed like they were lost in a maze
  I don't know why I thought I should have some kind of divine right to the blues
  It's sympathy not tears people need when they're the front page, sad news
  
  The incense burned away and the stench began to rise
  And lovers now estranged avoided catching each others' eyes
  
  And girls who lost their children cursed the men who fit the coil
  And men not fit for marriage took their refuge in the oil
  No one respects the flame quite like the fool who's badly burned
  From all this you'd imagine that there must be something learned
  
  Slit skirts
  Jeanie never wears those slit skirts
  I don't ever wear no ripped shirts
  Can't pretend that growing older never hurts
  
  Knee pants
  Jeanie never wears no knee pants
  Have to be so drunk to try a new dance
  So afraid of every new romance
  
  Slit skirts, slit skirt
  Jeanie isn't wearing those slit skirts, slit skirt
  She wouldn't dare in those slit skirts, slit skirt
  Wouldn't be seen dead in no slit skirt
  
  Romance, romance
  Why aren't we thinking up romance?
  Why can't we drink it up true heart romance
  Just need a brief new romance
  
  Let me tell you some more about myself, you know I'm sitting at home just now
  The big events of the day are passed and the late TV shows have come around
  I'm number one in the home team but I still feel unfulfilled
  A silent voice in her broken heart complaining that I'm unskilled
  
  And I know that when she thinks of me, she thinks of me as "him"
  But, unlike me, she don't work off her frustration in the gym
  
  Recriminations fester and the past can never change
  A woman's expectations run from both ends of the range
  Once she woke with untamed lovers' face between her legs
  Now he's cooled and stifled and it's she who has to beg
  
  Slit skirts
  Jeanie never wears those slit skirts
  And I don't ever wear no ripped shirts
  Can't pretend that growing older never hurts
  
  Knee pants
  Jeanie never wears no knee pants
  We have to be so drunk to try a new dance
  So afraid of every new romance
  
  Slit skirts, slit skirt
  Jeanie isn't wearing those slit skirts, slit skirt
  She wouldn't dare in those slit skirts, slit skirt
  Wouldn't be seen dead in no slit skirt
  
  Slit skirts, slit skirt
  Jeanie isn't wearing those slit skirts, slit skirt
  She wouldn't dare in those slit skirts, slit skirt
  Wouldn't be seen dead in no slit skirt
  
  Romance, romance
  Why aren't we thinking up romance?
  Why can't we drink it up true heart romance
  Just need a brief new romance Writer/s: Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend
  Publisher: Spirit Music Group
  Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 7

• Squirrel from CanadaMan, some of you guys must be listening to a different song....
  
  While it's definitely autobiographical (he has said this in interviews), and it is definitely about a couple at a rocky time in their relationship, it's not about his infidelity (where'd that come from in the lyrics?) or "immodesty" of women today, it's about her having lost the willingness to do things she might have done in the past.
  
  Far from decrying women's 'immodesty', or saying that his wife is better than others who wear slit skirts, he's lamenting the fact that she WON'T wear slit skirts. Slit skirts are sexy, blatantly so. He's sad that that part of her has gone.
  
  And Joseph Esposito, I think your comment comes from an age long past, maybe the late 1800s when in many places women were expected to dress primly and 'modestly'. You might want to reflect on where your anger against "modern" women (note the spelling, Joe...) comes from.
• Joseph Esposito from New HavenPete is definitely lamenting the immodest dress of wo-MEN he is saying his wo-MAN wouldn't dare be so immodest that she would wear a slit skirt. He is expressing disgust at modern wo-MAN'S immodesty & selfishness
• J from Planet EarthBob and Ray, both impressive posits; siding with Bob (or is it Eric) as he is more comprehensive; Townshend generates esoteric lyrics capturing (intentionally or not) the confusion caused when people attempt to have it both ways all the time. Sadly, it can be the human condition when people weaken and feed their illegitimate desires instead of the legetimate desires they commit to; "no one respects the flame..." for example; even though one threw oneself into it. Or as Bob says, Townshend's ex will never just be another desparate middle aged woman to Townshend, even after Townshend chooses infidelilty effectivly causing her to be a desparate, middle aged woman.
  
  
  Again, we like to feel superior, in control, regardless of our decision, albeit an odd or conflicting decision, to destroy what we legitimatly worked to make or legitimatly comit to. One word for it is pride. Another word for it is selfish. Another could be immaturity, easy come, easy go. Intellectuals, don't we love it?
  
  Fits with smashing the guitars doesn't it? Or, "Hope I die before I get old" ... Fun!
  
  Or: "I just want to be misunderstood, and the toughest little kid in the neighborhood".
  
  Much ado about nothing; PT gets paid. Bully for PT and bandmates.
  
  Why bother lamenting the passing of time? Would time be better invested in making the present and future more meaningful by honoring comittments and valuing others as much as oneself? Logical. How booring!! I'd rather be contradicting myself too, if I could afford it. As Groucho Marx once said: Please accept my resignation as I could never be part of any group that would have the likes of me as one of its members.
  
  Have to say, always liked PT's music and auto destruct mode, just fun! Don't know why.
  
  At last, let's sum it all up with one word...
  
  ....say it with me:
  
  POWER - CHORD
  
  
  Keep up the good work lads.
• Bob from San FranciscoThis song is an amazing reflection on the trajectory of a relationship from a moment of physical attraction through lust-driven physical love, fleeting romance, regret and finally dissolution and depression. You can imagine the sweet smell of insence during the early days of a seductive game ending up as the stench from the rotting corpse of a dead relationship. There's the selfishness of sexual freedom (the coil) and entrepreneurial pursuits (the oil) by men not mature (fit) enough for the family life (children) that might have lead to a less lonely trajectory (watching the late TV shows).
• Ray B from New JerseyDon’t forget the great Simon Phillips is playing drums. Although the video shows Big Country drummer behind the skins.
• Andy from FloridaEric from Virginia; I have to disagree. I think you have the first part right about the disintegration of the marriage - there are plenty of lines to support that - but with regard to her attitude, it talks about how they both have become stagnant - "we have to be so drunk to try a new dance" "she wouldn't dare in those slit skirts" - that suggests he's upset that she has to be drunk just to do anything new...
• Eric from VirginiaOh God no. No, No, NO. A thousand nos! (to B.D.'s explanation)
  
  There are a couple of lines in the second verse that can be read as referring to sexual performance, but that is totally missing the point of the song.
  
  This is an incredible meditation on the disintegration of a marriage in middle age. A meditation bristling with frustration, anger, defiance, disappointment -- you name it.
  
  Townshend is both ruing the loss of his youth and the opportunity, romance and idealization that accompanies youth while also saying that his ex (Jeanie) will never be some middle aged faceless woman in a slit skirt desperately trying to find someone new. And he won't be some middle aged wanker in a ripped shirt doing the same. He's ruing the loss of his marriage and of his youth while simultaneously giving the middle finger to being some desperate middle aged has-been. And that his ex is too good for that also.
  
  An absolutely brilliant -- and defiant -- meditation on aging, loss, and heartache.

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