C                Dm
It started as a bet
                Em
The story of a life
                   F
Part engineered to fit the scenery
C                    Dm
He'd loved a racist once
                   Em
She kept a tidy house
                         F            C
It must have paid much better in the seventies
                         Dm
Back then you could be gay
                Em
But in a manly way
                      F
He held no truck with water pistols
C                 Dm
Alternative lifestyles
                     Em
Were for the middle class
                             F              F
At worst they could write poems about their misadventures
F                               C
No real man could envy them that

C

[chorus]
Dm       F
Softly - suddenly


[verse 2]

C                     Dm
She'd started as an eight
                  Em
Then sunk into a ten
                     F
He put it down to carbon dating
C                        Dm
Their daughter had his laugh
                     Em
But not his smoker's cough
                       F                 C
It must have been the lack of tar in heroin
                     Dm
She took herself to Wales
                 Em
Excelled in telesales
                     F
Cold-calling deep into the evening
C                     Dm
Her second husband came
                     Em
And left before the spring
                       F            F
It must have been the season for unhappy drunks
F                               C
Her father had a similar trigger

C

[chorus]
Dm       F
Softly - suddenly


[bridge]

C
I gratefully accept this black eye
C
No one knows as well as me
Dm             F
The value of consequences
C
Do to others as you would have
C                             Dm
Done to you especially if in doing so
     F
You find new takers
C