tea | Take It Easy

For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday Jim is inviting us to play a song that mentions coffee or tea, as he tells us in his post Wake Up And Smell. I have previously run a Tuesday Tunes post for coffee but haven’t done one for tea, so I’m reprising one of the coffee songs I played before and giving you a new one for tea. Both are beverages I have been drinking for most of my life, so this feels like a good theme for me!

Here’s the first:

And the lyrics:

And she pours herself another cup of coffeeAs she contemplates the stain across the walland it’s in between the cleaning and the washingThat’s when looking back’sThe hardest part of all

And she always did her best to try and please himWhile he always did his best to make her cryAnd she got down on her knees to stop him leavingBut he always knew one day he’d say goodbye

Where are your friendsWhere are your childrenIs this your houseIs this your homeDoes nothing ever last forever

Does everybody sleep alone

And he tears the business tags from his old suitcaseAs he packs away the pieces of his lifeThey all love him but they always try to change himThat’s what happens when a girl becomes a wife

And she pours herself another cup of coffeeAs the pictures leave a clean space on the walland it’s in between the leaving and the lovingThat’s when looking back’sThe hardest part of all

Where are your friendsWhere are your childrenIs this your houseIs this your homeDoes nothing ever last foreverDoes everybody sleep alone

Don’t look backDon’t give upPour yourself another cup

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Christopher Neil / Mike Rutherford

Another Cup of Coffee lyrics © Anthem Entertainment, Concord Music Publishing LLC, Peermusic Publishing

Mike + the Mechanics released Another Cup of Coffee on their fifth album, Beggar on a Beach of Gold, which came out in March 1995 and peaked at #9 in the UK, picking up a Gold disc along the way. It was their first album not to make the US charts, and they haven’t been successful there since, though their five subsequent albums have all made the UK charts. It’s a sad little song about a woman whose husband has left her, and all she can think to do in the vacuum he has left behind is to pour herself another cup of coffee. This was the third single taken from the album, in August of that year: it only made #51 here in the UK and didn’t fare much better anywhere else, which I’ve always found puzzling. It is a gentle little song about an experience many will have shared, and the video – featuring Stephanie Buttle – is a perfect fit for it. I hoped to find an answer to another question that I’ve always had about it, and was pleased to see that Songfacts had an interview with Gregg Masuak, who directed the video. They asked him what Paul Carrack was wearing on his head and Gregg answered “No fucking clue.” So there you have it, I’m none the wiser and neither are you!

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else plays that song today, but I’d be willing to bet an entire week’s pension that I’ll be alone with my tea choice. And probably another week’s allowance that few will even have heard of the band. Stackridge, anyone? I thought not, apart from one reader who can be relied on to know even the most obscure of bands!

Stackridge hold a place in my heart, as they were the band who played at the Freshers’ Ball when I went to Uni in autumn 1972. I had seen them before – they played the Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone, where I lived, in November 1971 – and they were a delight. A mixture of beautiful tunes, wonderful musicianship, and utter lunacy on some of their less serious songs. This is still a favourite:

The lyrics are quite brief, so I’ll share them in their entirety:

Goodbye, the fire has stopped burningThe bellows lie dead in the roadGoodbye, the mill has stopped turningThe miller has changed to a toad

Goodbye, the journey was tar-painWe saw all we wanted to seeI really don’t think I’ll be stoppingI think I’ll go home and have tea

Goodbye, the stream has stopped flowingThe big sun has parched all the poolsGoodbye, the dream has stopped growingA fantasy surely for fools

Goodbye, the journey was tar-painWe saw all we wanted to seeI really don’t think I’ll be stoppingI think I’ll go home and have tea

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Jim ‘Crun’ Walter and Andy Cresswell-Davis

Stackridge were formed by the two songwriters in the late Sixties, and came from the Bristol/Bath area of Western England. Their music mixed folk leanings with a blend of prog rock, and they made a name for themselves as a touring band. They opened and closed the first ever Glastonbury Festival in 1970, and Teatime was the first song they played, so it has its place in musical history. Like a lot of their songs, I’m not entirely sure what the lyrics are about, but it seems to be about the end of an era, and the comforting closing thought – typically English – that all will be well when we go home for tea.

As I said, they were hugely enjoyable as a live act, and their albums were also very good. Teatime was the closing track on their second, Friendliness, which was released in November 1972 – our Freshers’ Ball was part of their promotional tour for it. I don’t think it made the charts at the time, but it did enjoy a week at #32 in 2023 after being re-released. I think they deserved better! Any band which can include songs like Dora The Female Explorer, Percy The Penguin, and the seven minute epic instrumental Purple Spaceships Over Yatton in their repertoire is alright by me! This is the first time I’ve played anything by them, and the memories it has brought back for me are encouraging me to play them again sometime. You have been warned!

That’s it for me for today, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this slightly offbeat mixture. See you again for Tuesday Tunes, I hope 😊