A Wasted Life​

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Three sheets to the wind in Copenhagen

Beaten to submission in Berlin

Locked up in a cell in Barcelona

Down and out in Paris and Madrid

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If I'd only set the bar a little higher

If I'd only kept an eye upon the time

Then I wouldn't be poking embers round the fire

Of this wasted life of mine

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Yeah

Why should I care?

I'm going down the drink

I'll see you there

And I wouldn't be pretending I was Hemingway or Reed

If I could write a happy ending

To this wasted life I lead

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Abandoned to the waves in old Valetta

All washed up in the port of Amsterdam

Taken to the cleaners in Vienna

Thrown into the Bull Ring in Birmingham

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If I'd only set the bar a little higher

If I'd only kept an eye upon the time

Then I wouldn't be poking embers round the fire

Of this wasted life of mine

​

Yeah

Why should I care?

I'm going down the drink

I'll see you there

And I wouldn't be pretending I was Hemingway or Reed

If I could write a happy ending

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And there were ten green bottles on the wall

And there were twenty green bottles on the wall

And there were thirty green bottles on the wall

And it was only half past four

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Yeah

Why should I care?

I'm going down the drink

I'll see you there

And I wouldn't be pretending I was Hemingway or Reed

If I could write a happy ending

To this wasted life I lead

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© Richard Quarterman 2017