East Finchley

When they put up the barriers at East Finchley underground
At the end of the tunnel that led to your road
They cut off my route to the only safe place I'd found
It cost money I didn't have for me to go home

And weren't you just a vision in the summer of '97
Sixteen and shaking with anticipation
In a world in which we still could be anything
And I was a visionary
Always making my plans
And always so very convinced of their greatness
Saying, I know you're going to hate this
But today we jump a train and go adventuring

If I followed those tracks
Would they take me back?

When did all that change?
When did the world get so hostile, start feeling so strange?
I never stopped shirking, you never started working,
But somehow we never grew up to be responsible commuters
Lost in the crowd, glued to their computers
Enduring their journeys, their thoughts never turning
To futures they'd decided were not meant to be

If I followed those tracks
Would they take me back?
If I jumped the barriers that they put up between us
When I got off the train
Could I start again?

Who could have dreamed that our lives would have turned out like this?
I used to need to tell Jesus what happened when we kissed
How can you accept that decisions cannot be unmade?
If we'd followed those tracks, would we remember how to be brave?

Well, they put up those barriers at East Finchley underground
At the end of the tunnel that led to your road
But these days I buy tickets and I don't see you around
And the place where you used to live is no longer home