Holiday

All songs written by Stephin Merritt.

BBC Telephonic Workshop
Instrumental

Desert Island

I'll be the madness that carries you away. I'll be the sadness to light your darkest day. I'll be the desert island where you can be free. I'll be the vulture you can catch and eat. Desert island, love is all around. Desert island, where you can laugh aloud. Desert island, everywhere's a beach, Desert island that's what I wanna be. We'll develop muscles from cracking coconuts, let our clothing drop off, feel each other's butts, start a better country where we can get things done, make a fortune turning sand to silicon. While we're still holding on, counting days until we're gone, can we spend some time alone in our free love zone?

Deep Sea Diving Suit

You didn't have to say that I'm no good 'cause I know. There's no point pointing pistols at me now. I'll just go. I never should have asked you to be kind, but I'm slow. I'm sorry, but how can I get to you, stuck in my fifty-pound lead boots, stuck in my deep sea diving suit? I never thought you'd turn on me 'cause you're my best friend. You say I never offered you a thing in the end. And now you wouldn't trust me with a grain of sand.

Strange Powers

On the Ferris wheel, looking out on Coney Island, under more stars than there are prostitutes in Thailand, our hair in the air, our lips blue from cotton candy. When we kiss it feels like a flying saucer landing. And I can't sleep, 'cause you got strange powers. You're in my dreams. Strange powers. In Las Vegas where the electric bills are staggering, the decor hog wild and the entertainment saccharin. What a golden age, what a time of right and reason. The consumer's king and unhappiness is treason. The sun runs down like honey. The moon pours down like mercury. The stars fall down like money. You come back to me.

Torn Green Velvet Eyes

You know the rain is gone when the sky is full of dust, and the tears are gone when your eyes are red as rust. And it just rains because it can, and you just cry until you can't. But I can feel my courage crumbling and my heart just turns to ice when I see myself reflected in your torn green velvet eyes. You know the night is gone when the sunlight burns your eyes. You know the cold is gone when the room is full of flies. And it's all a waste of time if you try to change your mind.

The Flowers She Sent and the Flowers She Said She Sent

I saw you standing in the airport with your Chihuahua in your hand, crying on the moving sidewalk, on your way to Disneyland. And the flowers she sent and the flowers she said she sent are all equally dead. You don't care anymore what she said. And the books she read and the books that she said she read are all spread on the floor. You don't get out of bed anymore. I saw you closing your antique shop with a boa round your throat, and you trembled like an ostrich in your ostrich feather coat.

Swinging London

I read your manifestoes and your strange religious tracts. You took me to your library and kissed me in the stacks. Planets crash, the world goes nova, sun explodes, all goes black You went off swinging London and forgot to come back. You couldn't grok my racecar but you dug the roadside blur. You weren't into my airplane but you loved the whirling world. Baby, come back.

In My Secret Place

Time swings like a wrecking ball into things. Youth fades as quickly as a hit parade. But as the days go by in the gray world outside, days grow on colorful trees in my secret place. They'll sell you tickets for their carousel. Don't pay: they'll get your money either way. You can go up and go down. You can go round and round. But there's a better fairground...

Sad Little Moon

The saddest brown eyes I'll ever know. You gave up crying so long ago. But come outside and watch the snow softly falling. Sad little moon in the big black sky, all alone. Hang your head and cry. Sad little moon in the timeless night. You may sleep but you will never die. You didn't need them, your Sunday friends, and so you watched them like grains of sand, running one by one out of your hands, softly falling.

The Trouble I've Been Looking For

Crows in trees. Spanish hotels by the sea. We wave goodbye. Airplanes draw swords in the sky. I'm so rich and you're so bored. Are you the trouble I've been looking for? You go out and you slam the door. Are you the trouble I've been looking for? My eyes still burn whether you leave or you return. The flowers bloom when you walk into the room. You stole it all and wrote my name on a wall. I've moved again. I've changed my name again.

Sugar World

Please forgive me for all the things I've done. Sugar, give me the love I need to carry on. Living without you I'd just die. With you, I can hold my head up high and tell the crowd that I'm so proud. It makes me want to cry. Sugar world of you. Sugar world what can I do? Sugar world you're so sweet. You're a sugar world to me. You're champagne or ruhr wine. Will you make up your mind? You're lemon or you're lime. You're pecan or praline. You're sky bar or cloud nine. Sugar save me. Come on, save me from myself. Enslave me. I never wanted anything else. Looking into your candy eyes, talking talking about the day when I can make a vow, but that's not now. It makes me want to cry.

All You Ever Do Is Walk Away

Sad as a painted clown, a beautiful boy in an ugly town, but when your circus closes down don't walk away from me. You've been asleep too long. The birds are bruises in the dawn. The pounds of flesh between us stretch as far as you can see. But all you ever do is walk away, and I know if you'd only go slow you could see what it means to be making the scene with me. But all you ever do is walk away, and I think if you tried you could find a little time for the life I can see in your eyes. Don't go. Sometimes you just explode, and no one alive can break your code. You have a language of your own, an unconnected road. The people you called your friends, the places you won't go again, the decades lost in finding them, you'll have to let them go.

In My Car

You were mean to me and broke my heart. Now you've gone away, but we're apart. But I've got a special machine to take me where things turned out differently and you still care. I'm in my car. I'm taking a ride to somewhere inside where you never left and I never cried. At the speed of light in my car. Never comin' back to the world. I know where I belong where I'm your girl. So I've got fuzzy dice to bring me luck. Roll me to a better place where we can rock

Take Ecstasy with Me

You used to slide down the carpeted stairs or down the banister. You stuttered like a kaleidoscope 'cause you knew too many words. You used to make ginger bread houses. We used to have taffy pulls. Take ecstasy with me, baby. You had a black snowmobile. We drove out under the northern lights. A vodka bottle gave you those raccoon eyes. We got beat up just for holding hands.