| Dear, thanks for your letter
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| Sounds like you’re living the way you wanted
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| And that makes me smile
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| No, I hadn’t heard Bjorn Borg retired
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| Thank God one of us has a finger on an sporting pulse
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| No records left to collect your complaint
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| Well, Borg, Brolin and an unknown tennis trainer
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| Released something recently
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| No doubt your contacts in the Stockholm underworld
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| Can source that gem
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| Got back the other day to find the pub
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| On the corner had been burnt down
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| A dark London street story, I won’t burden you with now
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| Determined as I am to write you some life affirming shit
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| And not drag you an a regular trawl
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| Through the night seas to find what crawls
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| Yet I know they’re casting their lots to see
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| Who can get the old pubs' lease
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| And turn it into more luxury flats
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| Brick by brick the infiltration has begun
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| I feel moved to take a spray can
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| And ending step to the boarding
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| But as yet I can’t think of anything witty
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| Or on point enough to be up there
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| Yet the drunkards still own the park
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| D’s still there in your old flat making beats
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| And still owns the night
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| While this street can still shape shift
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| And make you quicken your pace on a late night return
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| So I suppose we still have time
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| But make no mistake my friend
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| I’m sure some barricade somewhere has started calling
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| I’m so sorry we missed each other
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| When you last came to town
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| I heard from Ndeye you sat with her
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| Telling stories for three hours while
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| And he put some extensions in a client’s hair
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| She told me about Cuba, cigars and sacred drums
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| Of arguments in bars, Dante
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| The color of Christ and the only true poet
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| The South China Seas
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| Remembered Fa Yung, the Buddhist master
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| «How can we obtain truth through words?»
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| When she quoted your, 'Immature writer’s plagiarize
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| Mature writers steal"
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| I was back in a bar in New York, Lower East Side
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| When you shouted that at
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| Maybe it was yourself, maybe I wasn’t there
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| Maybe it’s slipped down between the years
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| My memory isn’t exactly all that now
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| But my friend, you definitely have a convert there
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| And if you ever need your hair braiding
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| And I know that’s a long shot then she’s your girl
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| As my man scratch or maybe Rakim or maybe Monk
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| More probably all of them at some stage said
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| «You gotta check the new style»
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| I’m assuming you are still running
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| An old testament blades to hair ratio
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| And it hasn’t fallen rudely out on you
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| If that’s the scenario then my sincerest apologies
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| Saw Mr. Brenan in the Holloway road yesterday
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| Walked past with a bag of potatoes on his shoulders
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| I didn’t stop him he wouldn’t have a clue who the hell I was
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| He didn’t back then
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| When we’d spent month’s sleeping on his sofa
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| Explaining which one of his son’s friends we were
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| Well, that’s the price you pay
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| For any more than six children in the Holloway road area
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| I think of you often
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| And hope we see each other again as soon as possible
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| Until such time may the winds be at your back
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| The dice be kind and the gods turn the occasional blind eye
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| Sincerely yours
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| Beyond the clouds
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| Beyond the son
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| The rebel without a cause |