Over The Border - Saint Etienne

When I was 10 I wanted to explore the world

There were these older kids at school who’d gone all the way to Somerset

Just to see Peter Gabriel’s house (Peter Gabriel from Genesis)

They way they’d dressed, the way their hair fell over their coat collars

It all happened because of music, I wanted to know why

I couldn’t go to Somerset on my own, so I used Top of the Pops as my world atlas

In 1974, I bought my first single, from Woollies in Redhill

I started to memorise the charts, to memorise the leagues

Tuesday lunchtime at 12:45, Saturday afternoon at five o’clock

I didn’t go to church, I didn’t need to

Green and yellow Harvests, pink Pyes, silver Bells and the strange and

Important sound of the synthesiser

Over the border, I’m growing older, heaven only knows what’s on its way

Every single day, love is here to stay

Over the border, I’m growing older, heaven only knows what’s on its way

Every single day, love is here to stay

Kevin drove us to parties in his Morris Minor

And there were boys, and there was booze, and mock Tudor semis

And first kisses, and terrible chat up lines

But in the end, the conversation always turned to music

I was in love, and I knew he loved me because he made me a tape

I played it in my bedroom, I lived in my bedroom, all of us did

Reading Smash Hits and Record Mirror, Paul Morley and the NME

Dave McCulloch and Sounds, Modern Eon and Modern English

Mute, Why, Zoo, Factory

Cutting them up, sucking them in, managing the story on our own

Over the border, I’m growing older, heaven only knows what’s on its way

Every single day, love is here to stay

Over the border, I’m growing older, heaven only knows what’s on its way

Every single day, love is here to stay

I had my mocks a month later

But I just wanted to listen to Dexys, New Order, anything on Postcard

A few weeks and I’d be free

A few weeks and music wouldn’t have to be so private, it would be there for

Me

It would be there for me, and when I was married, and when I had kids

Would Marc Bolan still be so important?

Over the border, I’m growing older, heaven only knows what’s on its way

Every single day, love is here to stay

Over the border, I’m growing older, heaven only knows what’s on its way

Every single day, love is here to stay