Cleaners from Venus, "Denmark Street"
So I've been listening to a lot of Cleaners from Venus lately--that being the name that poet/musician Martin Newell uses to record. He's not prominent enough that his lyrics are consistently available online, so here's a song I've been sort of preoccupied with. I don't know what "me, Queen Matilda, and Captain Ray" [Wray?] means, but I find it strangely evocative. Anyway here, it is:
No Queen Matilda to ease the trials
Of Celtic drunks with broken smiles
Who miss their station by several hundred miles
Asking "where are the fields of Saint Giles?"
The street of starlets who stop to say
"I'm going to make it some day"
Where all the lepers got rich or ran away
Leaving me, Queen Matilda, and Captain Ray
In every window a song for sale
Whistled by the milkman can't fail
You get that hook line you find the holy grail
There's a check for you later it's in the mail
And David Bowie is on the way
The ambulance has gone today
But don't you worry I think he did okay
Now it's me, Queen Matilda, and Captain Ray
Some boy could have been me
Been apprehended by the CID
Looks old but he's twenty-three
Down Tin Pan Alley seeking sanctuary
There's music leaking from underground
Somebody's madness turned into sound
To get them dancing all over London town
This is rags into riches the wrong way round
Now Machiavelli drops by to say
Penny for your tunes boys eh hey
It's never happened in any other way
Not for me, Queen Matilda, and Captain Ray