Heart full of holes

You can tell me your troubles
I’ll listen for free.
My regulars trust me, it seems.
You can come and see Uncle
to get trought the week
leave your pledges with me to redeem.
Some folks sell their bodies
for ten bob and go.
Politicians go pawning their souls.
Which doesn’t make me
look to bad, don’t you know
me, with my heart full of holes.
All my yesterdays broken
a watch with no face
all battered and old.
Bits of movement
all over the place
and a heart full of holes.
A heart full of holes.
A heart full of holes.

Brass knuckles and banjos
are out on the town
all the knees-up
in Teddy Boy’s Row.
The gold block and tackle
tells the time upside down.
Rock n’ roll – well, I don’t know.
Dead people’s wedding gifts
walk out of the door.
A clarinet squeals to be free.
Accordions hop
from the shelves to the floor –
start playing their polkas to me.

There’s a ringing of bells
a dunderhead’s curse.
Finger are pointing at you.
And you take work in hell
and be glad it’s not worse
and you get to the back of the queue.
Handcuffs and hunting knives
clang on the bars.
Air pistols shoot out the lights.
I’ve a whole Wailing Wall
of electric guitars
could shatter the windows
down Brick Lane tonight.

If one of us dies, love
I think i’ll retire
see my boys and my beautiful girl.
A Garden of Eden
no gates or barbed wire
who knows, maybe gates made of pearls.
Well, if we go to heaven
and some say we don’t
but if there’s a reckoning day
please God, I’ll see you
and maybe I won’t
I’ve a bag packed to go either way.

Redeeming your pledge, dear
I’ll keep it for you.
It’s not going to anywhere.
But your soul, your soul
that is not what I do.
There’s not a lot I can do there
I remember the officer’s watch
in my hand:
‘Repair it or die’ I was told
It’s a wonder to me –
I still don’t understand
why I ever survived to be old
with a heart full of holes.
A heart full of holes.
A heart full of holes.</p>