This week’s choice is the lyrics of “Prettiest Eyes” by The Beautiful South, written by Paul Heaton. I have chosen it for the memories it carries.
You can’t have too many good times, children
Paul Heaton (1962—)
You can’t have too many lines
Take a good look at these crows feet
Sitting on the prettiest eyes.
Poem 343. Prettiest Eyes
Line one is the time
That you, you first stayed over at mine
And we drank our first bottle of wine
And we cried.
Line two we’re away
And we both, we both had nowhere to stay
Well the bus-shelter’s always OK
When you’re young.
Now you’re older and I look at your face
Every wrinkle is so easy to place
And I only write them down just in case
That you die.
Let’s take a look at these crows feet, just look
Sitting on the prettiest eyes
Sixty 25th of Decembers
Fifty-nine 4th of Julys
Not through the age or the failure, children
Not through the hate or despise
Take a good look at these crows feet
Sitting on the prettiest eyes.
Line three I forget
But I think, I think it was our first ever bet
And the horse we backed was short of a leg
Never mind.
Line four in a park
And the things, the things that people do in the dark
I could hear the faintest beat of your heart
Then we did.
Now you’re older and I look at your face
Every wrinkle is so easy to place
And I only write them down just in case
You should die
Let’s take a look at these crows feet, just look
Sitting on the prettiest eyes
Sixty 25th of Decembers
Fifty-nine 4th of Julys
You can’t have too many good times, children
You can’t have too many lines
Take a good look at these crows feet
Sitting on the prettiest eyes
Well my eyes look like a map of the town
And my teeth are either yellow or they’re brown
But you’ll never hear the crack of a frown
When you are here.
You’ll never hear the crack
Of a frown.
This song carries a great deal of meaning for me—Nicola and I loved and listened to it many a time together and even now it is hard to read the lyrics without grieving for the life we had and the future we lost. Paul Heaton apparently wrote it at a depressing time in his life, but I don’t think it’s a depressing song. It is on the fourth album Miaow.
The song charts a few events shared by a couple during their life together, beginning in the first verse with the relationship starting—as so many start—with a bottle of wine, a stay over and a heartfelt conversation that brings both parties to the verge of tears or beyond.
In the second verse, the couple find themselves stranded without a place to lodge and as young people will, they improvise and spend the night in a bus shelter which doesn’t sound particularly comfortable if I think of modern bus shelters—I like to imagine that the shelter concerned is a more substantial structure with brick walls and a seat.
The narrator returns to the present and considers their partner’s face, musing that now they are older, every line on their face marks a memory that is a landmark in their lives and the only reason for making any other recording is in case the other person passes away. The crows feet, “Sitting on the prettiest eyes,” record sixty years of memories rather than marking a specific age—the memories that are worth keeping: no failures or hatreds, just the positive ones, so they are worth contemplating.
The third memory that his partner’s face brings to mind is a day out at the races where they placed their “first ever bet” together although their choice of horse could have been better! The fourth is an memory of an intimate tryst in the park, taking advantage of the darkness to get so close that “I could hear the faintest beat of your heart” and then, perhaps, getting closer.
The chorus, if it is one, is repeated here, and then the song closes with a self-deprecating coda: though age may have tainted his good looks, making his eyes bloodshot and staining his teeth, the love between them is so strong that they have never had a cross word or “the crack of a frown,” and never will.
We all have wrinkles that have arrived during the course of our life and Heaton (who has always been a subtle commentator on human nature) suggests that the lines on our faces record the landmarks in our lives—instead of wishing for their absence in the superficial image-obsessed way of many pop stars, he celebrates their presence and reflects on their connection to our life stories. Each memory evoked in the song is a mundane occurrence but taken together, they paint a picture of a loving and happy relationship.
I needn’t emphasise why I like this song. It is a part of me because it was a part of us and I bear my memories of our times together in the lines on my face.