Salome Malone - John Cooper Clarke

I was walking down oxford road

Dressed in what they call the mode

I could hear them spinning all their smash hits

At the mecca of the modern dance, the Ritz

My feet foxtrotted

My shoulders did the shimmy

The bouncer on the door said «a gimme, gimme, gimme»

I gave 'em the tickets, they gave me the shits

No healthy arguments… in the Ritz

Standing by the cig' machine, who did i see

In lurex and terylene, she hypnotised me

I asked her name, she said it’s…

«Salome Maloney, queen of the Ritz»

Lacquered in a beehive

Her barnet didn’t budge

Wet-look lips, she smiled as sweet as fudge

She had a number on her back

And sequins on her tits

The sartorial requirements

For females in the Ritz

A man making like Fred Astaire

Complete with spats and tails

A Douglas Fairbanks moustache

Dirty fingernails

Whose snide innuendo was as subtle as the blitz

Waltzed off with Salome in his greasy little mitts

Standing in the dandruff light

Trying to get pissed

Amongst the head-lice, old spice, Brut and body mist

How can she be seen dead

Dancing with that tit

Her being Salome, el supremo of the Ritz

Tables flew, bottles broke

The bouncers shouted «lumber»

The dummy got too chummy

In a Bing Crosby number

The bouncers said it’s suicide

Trying to get your mitts

On Salome Maloney, the queen of the Ritz

When the ambulances came

She was lying on the deck

She’d fell off her stiletto heels

And broke her fucking neck

The band threw down their instruments

The management threw fits

She’s dead.

she don’t bring the business to the Ritz

The over twenty-one's night said it was a shame

The divorcee club will never be the same

Joe Loss killed himself and Vic Sylvester quit

When the death dance drama did away with the Ritz

When the last waltz withered

And the quickstep stopped

The ladies excuse me was permanently blocked

And mecca make a living

Selling little bits

Of Salome Maloney

In the wreckage of the Ritz