Achtung

[Verse 1]

Kevin lived up near that red suburban Subaru that had broken down

His mother made him come round with homemade German food for mine, that’s how it began

Summer was spread out, thick with possibilities

So when his father was busy, we’d lie near the open window while Julie played piano in C

He was everything, I thought he was the North’s answer to Christ

He wanted to be mascotted on teatowels, tattooed on bodies, face in pixels

The dead Englishmen, we know their names, he’d say what he wanted to be

Whereas I wanted to lie a floor above them while Julie played piano in C

Father blocked out the sun so the plants were always wilted

And the curtains hung rank and sad (No touch)

And outside tarmac would gape open like thousands of tiny mouths

Even they got to taste Kevin’s flashing gaps of skin and I was scared (Achtung!)

[Chorus]

That his father would come in (Achtung!)

That his father would come in (Achtung!)

That his father would come in (Achtung!)

[Verse 2]

We used to write dirty words on paper stolen from his father’s office

I would scrunch them up, put them in a plant pot or an empty tree branch socket

I thought one day the police might come down for that red Subaru

What if they find them and arrest me, take me but never you?

But they’d never take him

Little pebbles tied with string, locks of hair, fingernails

Forgotten cocoons in tupperwares, gossamer rings

This was a household of men if that’s what you call one of a shy woman

Though everything was made pale pink: baby shoes, linen, the inside of his cheek

Father's voice gave grief to strangers, father's voice made mothers grieve

Father's voice made little lines round his wife’s eyes with his words

Tell her to stop, tell her to stop, tell her to stop it, ugh! (Achtung!)

[Chorus]

That his father would come in (Achtung!)

That his father would come in (Achtung!)

That his father would come in (Achtung!)

[Verse 3]

He’d go around, tell her to stop when Julie next-door would play

He’d close all the doors and the windows, say about a spoiled Sunday

So we’d sneak upstairs all quiet whenever she played Abide with Me

We’d go upstairs when the walls began to be flayed by her piano in C

Which of us left the other undressed, animal-free

I don’t remember a particular split

His father kept talking and talked into his head

Said men should only be gentle when they’re in their women’s beds, ah!

Glass bottles on a road, a fight down at a disco

Blood leaking from a trainer, a smashed Subaru window

[Outro]

But in my mind, sometimes

We meet near the open window, his father is out

His mother finally left him

While Julie plays Abide with Me

While Julie plays piano in C