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The Bakery Lyrics
I wish you would have smiled in the bakery
or sat on a tatty settee
at some mutual friend's gathering
and the more you keep on looking
the more it's hard to take
love, we're in stale mate
to never meet is surely where we're bound
there's one in every town
just there to grind you down
I wish I would have seen you in the post office
well maybe I did and I missed it
too busy with a mind on clever lines
why not the rounders pitch or the canteen
you're slacking love, where have you been?
Just had to go and wait until tonight
so give me the invite
don't worry it's alright
I wish I would have seen you down in the arcade
sipping on a lemonade in the paper cup and chewing on the straw
and I wish I would have seen you in the bakery
but if I'd seen you in the bakery you probably wouldn't have seen me
or sat on a tatty settee
at some mutual friend's gathering
and the more you keep on looking
the more it's hard to take
love, we're in stale mate
to never meet is surely where we're bound
there's one in every town
just there to grind you down
I wish I would have seen you in the post office
well maybe I did and I missed it
too busy with a mind on clever lines
why not the rounders pitch or the canteen
you're slacking love, where have you been?
Just had to go and wait until tonight
so give me the invite
don't worry it's alright
I wish I would have seen you down in the arcade
sipping on a lemonade in the paper cup and chewing on the straw
and I wish I would have seen you in the bakery
but if I'd seen you in the bakery you probably wouldn't have seen me
Song Info
Submitted by
,tan-x On May 08, 2007
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a settee is a couch, a sofa. read these words without the music and find that they're very revealing, and kind of personal. usually i think of an independent narrator with a lot of the monkeys' songs, but this is clearly alex turner talking. and he's talking about love, temptation, and fame.
this is a guy who on a daily basis sees females of every type throwing themselves at him; some that catch his eye, and when he does see one, the first thing he can think is how his fame could affect his interaction with the girl. and alex thinks the girl keeps on looking at him because of his status.
so he wishes he had just seen the girl in a common, standard place where he's a regular guy, and she's a normal girl and they're just both attracted to each other without any pre-conceptions: a friends house, the post office, or the bakery.
then the last line is probably the most revealing and the saddest to me: "if i'd seen you in the bakery, then you probably wouldn't have seen me." he admits that if he was just a regular guy, she probably wouldn't have been attracted to him in the first place, and ultimately it's his fame and status that drive the attraction of all these girls and women to him.
and there's one in every town there to tempt him, but then he realizes that she doesn't really want him. the thought process is really a cycle :(
that right this is a story about a girl that he met at a gig, and had a moment with her, but the never spoke with her through words, only with their eyes. and it is too about all the other girls that he kept the memories of their faces.
It's "clever lines" really, not "clever rhymes" ...
Ace song though!
The song can be downloaded here: "sendspace(dot)com/file/n2rlvk "
Perhaps he's saying he wishes he'd seen the person when he was being himself, and not under pressure, thinking of "clever lines". I don't really know, great song though!
I think the last line is about how fate has decided for them not to be together . Just my idea :) great song . Reminds me of something The Kooks would do
cheers, i knew it was one of the two :-)
wont let me edit it like
is this the song thats coming out on the Fluorescent Adolescent ep in july? if it is where did you get it, iv looked everywhere for it. oh, and i was under the impesion its called the bakery, rather than bakery song. if indeed this is the song im thinking of.
I am quite convinced it is 'rhymes' as you wrote. They played the song during an acoustic set on some american radio station. There is a link on arctic-monkeys.com in the Arctic Monkeys section i believe. Just search for the Bakery Song.
Besides that it's a fine song, i'd say the meaning is pretty straight forward. Even though it's so simple it still made a big impression on me.
Beautiful song.