readers' wives


          make a date with the brassy brides of britain
          the altogether ruder readers' wives
          who put down their needles and their knitting
          at the doorway to our dismal daily lives

          the fablon top scenarios of passion
          nipples peep through holes in leatherette
          they seem to be saying in their fashion
          'I'm freezing charlie - haven't ya finished yet?'

          cold flesh the colour of potatoes
          in an instamatic living room of sin
          all the required apparatus
          too bad they couldn't fit her head in

          in latex pyjamas with bananas going ape
          their identities are cunningly disguised
          by a six-inch strip of insulation tape
          strategically stuck across their eyes

          wives from inverness to inner london
          prettiness and pimples co-exist
          pictorially wife-swapping with someone
          who's happily married to his wrist


          LYRICS © JOHN COOPER CLARKE