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  • David McWilliams

    David McWilliams

    Days of Pearly Spencer • David McWilliams Volume 2 (1967) • 8 translations

    Also performed by: Lord of the Lost, Marc Almond
    +2 more
    , Rodolphe Burger, The Grass Roots
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Original lyrics
8 translations

Days of Pearly Spencer lyrics

A tenement, a dirty street
walked and worn by shoeless feet,
inside it's long and so complete,
watched by a shivering sun
Old eyes in a small child's face
watching as the shadows race
through walls and cracks and leave no trace
and daylight's brightness shuns
 
The days of Pearly Spencer
Ah, ah, ah
The race is almost run
 
Nose pressed hard on frosted glass
gazing as the swollen mass
on concrete fields where grows no grass
stumbles blindly on
Iron trees smother the air
but withering they stand and stare
through eyes that neither know nor care
where the grass is gone
 
The days of Pearly Spencer
Ah, ah, ah
The race is almost run
 
Pearly where's your milk white skin
what's that stubble on your chin
it's buried in the rot gut gin,
you played and lost not won
You played a house that can't be beat,
now look your head's bowed in defeat;
you walked too far along the street
Where only rats can run
 
The days of Pearly Spencer
Ah, ah, ah
The race is almost run
 
The days of Pearly Spencer
Ah, ah, ah
The race is almost run
 

 

Translations of "Days of Pearly ..."
Croatian
French
German
Greek #1, #2
Hebrew #1, #2
Interlingua
Related
Tom Hagen   German version
Caterina Caselli - Il volto della vita   Italian cover adaptation.
Cristiano Malgioglio - Il volto della vita   Italian version
David McWilliams: Top 3
1.Days of Pearly Spencer
2.Poverty Street
3.For a Little Girl
Collections with "Days of Pearly ..."
1.Songs and Poems about the Homeless
2.Number One Hits in France (1968)
Idioms from "Days of Pearly ..."
1.Hard-pressed
Comments
maëlstrommaëlstrom    Thu, 01/06/2017 - 17:57

line 2: "In silence, long and so complete"

BlackSea4everBlackSea4ever    Sat, 24/11/2018 - 14:16

"And ever since the song was first released, there's been intense speculation over its meaning.
Some reports say it was about life in general in Ballymena, but other theories were that it was about a homeless man from Cullybackey.
Mandy Bingham [daughter] says her mother Gil believes David wrote the song with at least one troubled woman in mind, but her dad never really opened up about the back story.
"I think the 'milk white skin' lyrics back up the notion that it was about a woman," she says. "But whatever the inspiration was, it was the sort of thing that Dad would have noticed - people down on their luck."

From
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/features/pearly-spencer-was-only...

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