Midnight Shift - John Cooper Clarke

There’s a body in the basement

The TV’s full of guns

In the room adjacent

Cold water runs

The sound of cisterns

Sizzling bacon or chips

Footsteps in the distance

She’s working on the midnight shift

The room is getting colder

Start jumping Jack

You’re the bluebird over her shoulder

The monkey on her back

She left your taxi fare

There’s a message in the gift

You got more than she could spare

She’s working on the midnight shift

Feedback screams on a twisted riff

Luxembourg by night

The cheapjack dream of the midnight shift

Doesn’t work out right

He’s got to shoot, he’s got to shoot

Put his face about

It’s like the long abandoned baseball boot

With the tounge hanging out

The perfume of the essence rare

That lingers in the lift

He’s a prince among the peasants where

She’s working on the nidnight shift

You’re gonna find her stuck in the lift

To the wonderland of vice

You’re gonna find her on the midnight shift

With feet like blocks of ice

She carried water for the mainman

She had to walk the streets

She married a door-to-door salesman

Who worked away all week

She lived with an empty chair

Until the final rift

She didn’t have a thing to wear

She had to work on the midnight shift

You’re gonna find her frozen stiff

You think you been hurt

You’re gonna find her on the midnight shift

Standing in the dirt

You like to put yourself about

Like the main man about town

She needs someone to help her out

But that’s where you keep falling down

Was there ever a thing so fair

That smashed itself to bits

Sometimes you get nowhere

Working on the midnight shift

A million tears gonna tear her apart

Eyes that never shut

A million spears gonna pierce your heart

It’s the death of a thousand cuts

A million souls all running scared

Or else they only drift

You won’t find her anywhere

She’s working on the midnight shift

You’re gonna find her on the hit list

Of a cheapskate beastly rag

You’re gonna find her on the midnight shift

What a fuckin' drag

You really can’t stop now

The visitors arrive

Here come the cops now

Crunching up the drive

Flat footsteps on the stairs

Bad news travels swift

Sometimes you get nowhere

Working on the midnight shift