Chris Rea

You're Not A Number

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You're Not A Number Lyrics

You can feel your nerve endings
They've been dead before today
You can feel them rising
Feel them rising all the way

You've got grease on your fingers
oil on your face
Happy completely chasing the pace
Happy to find out even this late
You're not a number

There's a new sense of freedom
Come banging on your door
Deep down inside you
You've seem it all somewhere before
Somewhere in the past
Somewhere in a dream
It's got you completely
And you know what it means
Happy to find out even this late
You're not a number

There's a new sense of freedom
Come banging on your door
Deep down inside you
You've seem it all somewhere before
You've got grease on your fingers
oil on your face
Happy completely chasing the pace
Happy to find out even this late
You're not a number

Submitted by

redmax On Dec 26, 2001

Tell Me There's A Heaven

Fool (if You Think It's Over)

Looking For The Summer

On The Beach

The Road To Hell (part 2)

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Not sure what they’re singing in that fuzzy bridge? Drop a question in the comments and let the music nerds swarm. Someone always knows.

redmax

Submitter

2001-12-26 14:57:47

1 Meaning

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by DavidGPalmer

3y ago

Since 30 years ago at a time when I was facing redundancy, I have interpreted the lyrics as something to do with the freedoms and release, had that nasty stuff happened to me - the flip side of all the bad stuff being that I could find simple relaxation in just being myself, released from all the daily pressures of being just a ‘numbered cog’ in some corporate machine, in favour of just messing around with my old cars (‘grease on your fingers, oil on your face’…?). As things turned out, I lasted a further 10 years within the system before finally getting out, after which I did indeed get to enjoy grease on the fingers, oil on my face….oh, and free to poke Two Fingers at the oppressive hierarchies which had previously enslaved me !

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