Lloyd Cole - Perfect Skin

I choose my friends only far too well
I'm up on the pavement, they're all down in the cellar
with their government grants and my i.q.
they brought me down to size, academia blues

Louise is a girl, I know her well
she's up on the pavement, yes she's a weather girl
and I'm staying up here so I may be undone
she's inappropriate, but then she's much more fun and

when she smiles my way
my eyes go out in vain
she's got perfect skin

shame on you, you've got no sense of grace, shame on me
ah just in case I might come to a conclusion
other than that which is absolutely necessary
and that's perfect skin

Louise is the girl with the perfect skin
she says turn on the light, otherwise it can't be seen
she's got cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin
and she's sexually enlightened by cosmopolitan and

when she smiles my way
my eyes go out in vain
for her perfect skin
yeah that's perfect skin

she takes me down to the basement to look at her slides
of her family life, pretty weird at times
at the age of ten she looked like greta garbo
and I loved her then, but how was she to know that

when she smiles my way
my eyes go out in vain
she's got perfect skin

up eight flights of stairs to her basement flat
pretty confused huh, being shipped around like that
seems we climbed so high now we're down so low
strikes me the moral of this song must be there never has been one