Ballad of the Unsent Letter Songtext
von Aidan Moffat & The Best-Ofs

He said, ′We've never been so far apart as we have right now,
but then again, doll, we′ve never been closer.'
She said, 'No distance, time or place could ever make me love you less,
my smile′s a song and you are my composer.′

She was in Namibia, sleeping underneath the stars,
with the lion's roar and guinea fowls a-hooting.
He was in the USA and running out of cash,
he′d been robbed and he'd overheard a shooting.

One night he wrote a letter to explain his inside out,
his heart was heavy and somehow he had to vent it,
so he filled some motel stationery with words he couldn′t say,
kissed the envelope, but never even sent it.


He'd claim that he was scared that it would get lost in the post,
but in truth, he lacked assertiveness and courage.
Maybe he′d made promises he wasn't sure he'd keep
and he was terrified of fatherhood and marriage.

But he kept the letter tucked inside a book he never read
and back in Glasgow, he unpacked and soon he found it.
So he delivered it right there into the hands where it belonged
and said, ′I′m yours and now I know there's no way round it.

I′ve fallen out of bars in all the Western World,
gazed drunkenly at stars as my wanderlust unfurled,
I've lain in countless cots but I′ve slept in very few,
my mind and back's in knots but every night I dreamt of you

and now I′m home.'