Limbo (Baby Limbo)... by John Cooper Clarke

L I M B O ( B A B Y LI M B O )

their lives are a mystery they make it their career in the single files of history fall and disappear swearing they'll get even with all those other creeps philistines and Heathens they violently sleep or steal from cigarette machines just for the change to get back to where they've been a doorway in the rain back in the confession box back in the slums desire burns like chicken pox underneath the thumbs a refugee from purgatory wears a crown of thorns turns out she's a gringo of hard circumstance limbo Baby Limbo they want to see you dance take the tradesman's entrance take it out on a tramp every fucking sentence complains about the damp the only girl is a faint cry in the garden of cement wait until the paint dries it's a big event look through heaven's window with their opalescent panes limbo Baby Limbo down the Boulevard of shame saint Margaret dies intact hardly seems alert her stone gaze denies the fact her face hurts the extra legal image the cold cream skin the regal gimicks did you in look through heaven's window you see the powder blue veil the cover girl of limbo the sweetheart of the jail gypsy babies hop-scotch outside the silver gates the witch doctor's wristwatch is stuck at five-to-eight a bad break, a slight ache is every ones compaint flesh flakes like angel cake from mug-shots of the saints who fell from a window was never seen again 'til he turns up in limbo in a doorway in the rain a hero rides to heaven the public only rots for a fraction of forever in a designated spot eternally paralysed a morbid orbit shift halfway to paradise stuck in the lifts some smart crackin' bimbo say's you can't be employed sends you off to limbo on the stairway to a void

Note: This version is from 'Snap, Crackle & Bop,' (which is a little different in places to the versions on 'Walking Back to Hapiness,' and the version in the book: 'Ten Years in An Open Necked Shirt.'