A heart full of holes

You can tell me your troubles
I'll listen for free
My regulars trust me, it seems
You can come and see Uncle
to get through the week
leave your pledges with me to redeem
Some folk sell their bodies
for ten bob a go
Politicians go pawning their souls
Which doesn't make me
look too bad, don't you know
me, with my heart full of holes
All my yesterdays broken
a watch with no face
all battered and old
Bits of the movement
all over the place
and a heart full of holes
A heart full of holes
A heart full of holes

Brass knuckles and banjos
are out on the town
at the knees-up
in Teddy Boys' Row
The gold block and tackle
tells the time upside down
Rock n' roll - well, I don't know
Dead people's wedding gifts
walk out the door
A clarinet squeals to be free
Accordions hop
from the shelves to the floor -
start playing their polkas to me

There's a ringing of bells
a dunderhead's curse
Fingers are pointing at you
And you take work in hell
and be glad it's not worse
and you get to the back of the queue
Handcuffs and hunting knives
clang on the bars
Air pistols shoot out the lights
I've a whole Wailing Wall
of electric guitars
could shatter the windows
down Brick Lane tonight

If one of us dies, love
I think I'll retire
see my boys and my beautiful girls
A Garden of Eden
no gates or barbed wire
who knows, maybe gates made of pearls
Well, if we go to heaven
and some say we don't
but if there's a reckoning day
please God, I'll see you
and maybe I won't
I've a bag packed to go either way

Redeeming your pledge, dear
I'll keep it for you
It's not going to go anywhere
But your soul, your soul
that is not what I do
There's not a lot I can do there
I remember the officer's watch
in my hand:
‘Repair it or die' I was told
It's a wonder to me -
I still don't understand
why I ever survived to be old
with a heart full of holes
A heart full of holes
A heart full of holes