Ballad of Mary Foster (2007 Remaster) (2007 - Remaster)

Ballad of Mary Foster (2007 Remaster) - Al Stewart

David Foster lives in Gloucester with his family

Works 'til pay-time

Through the day-time then comes home for tea

Steak and kidney

Then with Sydney to his club and feels free

They close the bar

He finds his car and then goes home to sleep

And his wife has been with Rosie

In the parlour where it's cosy

Watching telly doing dishes patching pants

And making wishes

And he'll say "Bill should have wired"

And "Not tonight dear I'm too tired"

And life drifts slowly by in the provinces

Peter Foster goes to Gloucester for his first school day

Bites his teacher

Sees a preacher and is taught to pray

Sees some birds and learns some words it's very

Very rude to say

Yes he's rather like his father was in his young day

And his father has discussions

Holding forth about the Russians

"Will the Red Chinese attack us "

"Do we need the Yanks to back us "

And in bed she feels his shoulder

But he grunts and just turns over

And life drifts slowly by in the provinces

Wedding rings come with strings

But love depends on the little things

"Oh could that still be really you "

"Is there anything time can't do

David Foster's been promoted

He's a decent sort

Peter's gone to Dad's old Public School

It's good for sport

They've even got a private parking place down

In Huntingdon Court

Maybe soon he'll be a magistrate

The neighbours thought

Yes and then he'll teach the beatniks

And the hang around the streetnicks

And the good for nothing loafers

Who knock girls up on their sofas

And his wife is quite nice really

Though she seems a little dreamy

Recently

I was born and brought up on the east side of town

And my earliest days they passed quickly

I would play after school with the kids all around

In the sun and the dust of the back streets

Oh all through my girlhood the war had its day

And my daddy he would always be leaving

So my brother and I we would sit by her side

Telling our tales through the evening

Oh I grew with the days and the boys came to call

In the back shed I learned about kissing

But I don't think my mother she has noticed at all

For we've heard that my daddy is missing

Then my school days they were over

And I went off to work

And my mother she grew quieter and greyer

So one day I left her and went off to live

With Billy a saxophone player

In our broken down attic we laughed and made love

And all that we had we were sharing

Oh we slept through the day and played into the night

God we did as we pleased without caring

Oh but a year's passed away and he's left me one day

To play in a far away country

And the sun told my eyes "You've got no place to hide"

As I waited to be having his baby

Oh I lived in the park and the men passed and stared

Each wondering which one had lost her

And one came to ask could he buy me a meal

And he said he was called David Foster

We were married that month and I swore to myself

Somehow I'd pay back what I owed him

Cooking his supper and cleaning his boots

Yes and kidding myself I could love him

Oh but now my baby is grown

And he's gone out to school

And he looks very much like his daddy

And David has buried himself in his work

And the time on my hands it hangs heavy

Oh the neighbours they smile as we pass in the streets

And they make their remarks on the weather

But the butcher and baker deliver things now

And I've stopped going out altogether

Oh I live by my mirror and stare in my eyes

Just try to make out who I see there

But I'm looking at a woman that I can't recognize

And I don't think that she knows me either

There are lines on her face and her hair is a mess

And the light in her eyes it grows colder

In the morning there's nothing will change ah but yes

I will be just a little bit older