Emily-Anne Songtext
von Reinhard Mey

Emily Anne picks up her home
A tattered book, a toothless comb
A yellowed letter singing praises to her charms
She packs away her memories
With the bottle that brings ease
In the battered bag she clutches in her arms

Raucous Rooks disturb the northern morn
From the trees outside the town
A goods train shakes the railway bridge′s dust
On her "Daily Mirror" eiderdown
And the mill-girls shudder from their sleep
Dreams of princes dying with the dawn
Clogs that clatter on the cobbled road
Warn her that another day is born


Emily Anne picks up her home
A tattered book, a toothless comb
A yellowed letter singing praises to her charms
She packs away her memories
With the bottle that brings ease
In the battered bag she clutches in her arms

Cockney Sparrows squabble constantly
Scrabble for the crumbs around her feet
She breaks the barren bread of poverty
Shares it with the sorrows of the street
And the pigeons on the pedestals
Desecrate the sleeping statues stones
They're immune to authority
But she sees the time has come to go

Emily Anne picks up her home
A tattered book, a toothless comb
A yellowed letter singing praises to her charms
She packs away her memories
With the bottle that brings ease
In the battered bag she clutches in her arms


Finches Fidget in the hawthorn hedge
Bees desert the Kentish country lane
She reads the signs and searches for a barn
To shelter from the coming of the rain
And as she huddles in among the straw
She feels his gentle hand caress her waist
When the drumming of the raindrops cease
The fiction of his face begins to fade

Emily Anne picks up her home
A tattered book, a toothless comb
A yellowed letter singing praises to her charms
She packs away her memories
With the bottle that brings ease
In the battered bag she clutches in her arms

Seagulls circle over lazy waves
Seaweed scents the sunlit Sussex sand
She holds a shell between her fingertips
Wrinkled like the skin upon her hand
Laughing, shouting kids on skipping feet
With their spades and buckets scurry by
While the ocean of her loneliness
Stretches to the margins of the sky

Emily Anne picks up her home
A tattered book, a toothless comb
A yellowed letter singing praises to her charms
She packs away her memories
With the bottle that brings ease
In the battered bag she clutches in her arms