And if it rains all day
Call on you I'll call on you
Like I used to
Slide down beside and wrap you in stories
Tailored entirely for you
I'll remind you
We exchanged a vow
I love you I always will

A call girl with yesterday eyes
Was our witness and priest
Stockport supporters club kindly provided a choir
Your vow was your smile
As we move down the aisle
Of the last bus home
And this is where I go
Just when it rains

Blinking and stoned
Rain in your hair
You only smoke 'cause it's something to share
Singing bring on the night
To have and to hold
The sodium light turning silver to gold

Spitfire thin and strung like a violin
I was
Yours was the face with a grace
From a different age
You were the sun in my Sunday morning
You were the sun in my Sunday morning
Telling me never to go
So I'll live on the smile
And move down the aisle
Of the last bus home
And if you're running late
This is where I'll go
Know I'll always wait


Lyrics submitted by Leif_Erikson, edited by melomanist

Great Expectations Lyrics as written by Richard Barry Jupp Peter James Turner

Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.

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Great Expectations song meanings
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  • +3
    General Comment

    The song is, indeed, about imagining getting married on a bus. He's talking about a girl he used to see every week on the bus (the sun in his Sunday morning) and that he had imagined he was in relationship with. The elements of and people on the bus became the elements of a wedding- "A call girl with yesterday eyes was our witness and priest; Stockport Supporters Club kindly provided a choir; Your vow was your smile as we moved down the aisle of the last bus home."

    It was a long time ago, when he was "spitfire thin and strung like a violin." Now, as he remembers it, he thinks of how wonderful were his "great expectations" of this imagined relationship and tells her that he's going back to that bus route to find her. "If you're running late, this is where I'll go; know I'll always wait." It's an amazingly clever and beautifully written song about a subject that could come off as almost creepy if not done right- a guy who sees a girl constantly and imagines being married to her tells her that he'll keep going back to run into her again. Kudos, Elbow!

    acoustikidon October 18, 2009   Link

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