Books

And I have a pot full of coins and above it hangs a picture

Of a brother and a sister there's been a wedding

Black painted floorboards and a stench like wet cardboard

This is the dead smell of another winter

And I don't want to be bound up like books

I don't want to be a sad ornament of a place

They are bound up like books I don't want to be a picture frame

A house full of things some of which they hadn't seen

Since they bought the sodding things in 1980 something

If only their place had a little more space

And a little less waste that would be then something

If only their house looked like those in books

If only their cupboards didn't look like Mother Hubbards

And I don't want to be bound up like books

I don't want to be a sad ornament of her place

They are bound up like books I don't want to be the picture frame

No book in this house went unread

An old cup an old plate and in this house

Absolutely everything seems out of place

Out of place there were pictures on the walls

Just to hide the faults there were pictures on walls

And a friendly old ghost that'll haunt me 'till the day

That I die I have a pot full of coins and

Above it hangs a picture of a brother and a sister there's *wedding* and

Black painted floorboards and a stench like wet cardboard

This is the dead smell of another winter

Bound up like books