You stop in the old cafe where you used to play pinball. And look for the air-raid shelter but it's gone and the cafe seems so small and all the gardens that had trees and stolen apples now have small businesses flourishing in cinder blocks. Then they will call your name and hand you a gold watch. Then they will call your name but it doesn't sound like much. And you'll never discover why it's like an old lover you can't touch anymore. It doesn't mean much anymore when you go back in time, back in time.
You head down to the local try to find a focal point. A scratch in the wallpaper but it's all been wallpapered over. Down at the newsagents it's all pornography and you try to get high again but it's like time-lapse photography. Then they will call your name and hand you a medal or something more practical like a whistling kettle and it'll test your metal just try to keep grinning knowing that this feeling is indulgence worse than sinning, trying to go back in time.
Photographs with a glossy finish, letters lovers never finished. And there in a dusty drawer a necktie you once wore. And a girl you tried to court made you feel about two feet short. Where is she now today? What would she have to say? Then they will call your name and hand you a pension. A bottle of pills that guarantee life extension and give you a mention in the local boy makes good section. But all the old news is like print stains across your mind when you go back in time.
from the song "back in time" by graham parker
