All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes

Producer Chris Thomas.
Musicians: Pete Townshend, Virginia Astley, Tony Butler, Peter Hope-Evans, Mark Brzezicki,
Simon Philips, Jody Linscott, Chris Stainton, Polli Palmer, John Lewis.

Pete Townshend Video EP
Music from "All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes"
Released 1982 by Sony (out of print)

STOP HURTING PEOPLE

A love born once must soon be born again
A spark that burned, then died, leaving cinders to be fanned
By the wind and thrown flame
Flames like tongues impassioned in a moments burst.
Tell me my friend- why do you stand aloof from your own heart
The truth confronts you-the truth confronts you as the sea
Crushing with out detail
Impassioned and detached,
Killing with love and power in God's name.
People stop hurting people, People stop hurting people

Love conquers poses, love smashes stances,   love crushes angels into black
So you, without question, know your first love is your last.
and you will never-never-never-love again.

I always  wished to walk with her into restaurants, (A clammy tale)
To be seen beside her at the public bar foot rail
I always wanted to be matched with her
Yet her beauty was so different to mine
My "beauty" needs an understanding and a knowledge of what I am.
Hers is enough earned thru eons; for that is what true beauty is
Time's gift to perfect humility.

May I be matched with you again
I know the match is bad
But God help me
May I be matched with you again
I know the match is bad
But God help me
May I be matched with you again
I know the match is bad
But God help me
Without your match there is no flame

People stop hurting people
People stop hurting people
People stop hurting people
People stop hurting people

I remember being richer than a king
The minutes of the day were golden
I recall that when the joint passed round
My body felt a little colder
But now I'm like a sewer channel - running lime and scag
Let me get at the master panel - let me at my stack

The sea refuses no river
And right now this river's banks are blown
The sea refuses no river
Whether stinking and rank
Or red from the tank
Whether pure as a spring
There's no damned thing stops the poem
The sea refuses no river
And this river is homeward flowing

I have seen a trace of strain
In other's eyes not spoken
I must admit that I enjoyed their pain
But this time it's me that's broken
I demand for you and His
This must be the time
When we decide what freedom is
Turn water into wine

For the sea refuses no river
We're polluted now but in our hearts still clean
The sea refuses no river
We tried not to age
But time had it's rage
We're washed over stones
From babes into clones of the mean
The sea won't refuse this muddy river
Nor deny the sulfurous stream

There was a fool in a dressing robe
Riding out the twilight hour
Lonely and cold in an empty home
Trying to assess his power
But now he's like a stream in flood
Swollen by the storm
He doesn't care if he sheds his blood
Let him be reborn

For the sea refuses no river
Remember that when the beggar buys a round
The sea refuses no river
And rain fills the gutters
No time for stutters
This is our chance
To sing and to dance and to clown
The sea refuses no river
And rivers were sprung to drown

The sea refuses no river
No pecking code respected for the damned
The sea refuses no river
Whether starving or ill
Or strung on some pill
Just 'cos you own the land
There's no unique hand plugs the dam
The sea refuses no river
And the river is where I am

The river is where I am.

Sometimes walking thru the streets of this city
I see all the faces of the winners and the losers

Oh why, can't I see a change just one sign
Before I say goodbye
Before I say goodbye

I watch you sit and twitching
With a match between your teeth
You seem to have a knack of moving it
It's in time to the beat

Face dances tonight
Fate chances moonlight
Face dances tonight
Fate chances moonlight

I can't be distracted
By the stuttering of the kids
I just sit enraptured
By your fluttering eye lids

Face dances tonight
Fate chances moonlight
Face dances tonight
Fate chances moonlight

I can only stare
You make me feel
Like I don't care

I can only stare
You make me feel
Like I don't care

I can only stare
You make me feel
Like I don't care

Your eyes explain a story
That never had a start
Your brow reveals the glory
That's hidden in your heart

Face dances tonight
Fate chances moonlight
Face dances tonight
Fate chances moonlight

Your skin is fine china
White as winter snows
Your lips are always shining
Turning up your nose

Face dances tonight
Fate chances moonlight
Face dances tonight
Fate chances moonlight

I can only stare
You make me feel
Like I don't care

The tissue box is empty
No coffee for my cream
Dogs howl in the alley
Crazy women scream
Some kids shout from there pick up truck
There stoned on life and beer
Fifty radios playing in this street
But I'm still hardly here

Exquisitely bored in California
We take our trouble to the Crest
Exquisitely bored in California
Exquisitely bored, Just like all the rest

When the sun shines things'll get moving,
You feel close to the stars.
There are good times walking in Laguna,
But it rains in my heart

The peasants here are starving
They look out there barrels out in space
Pray TV looks like pay TV to me
It's just a curse on the human race
I take a drive up to L.A.
In my gas guzzling limousine
There's a whole lot of crazy people up there
Living out a life in sweet ennui

Exquisitely bored in California
We take our trouble to the Crest
Exquisitely bored in California
Exquisitely bored, Just like all the rest

When the sun shines things'll get moving,
You feel close to the stars.
There are good times walking in Laguna,
But it rains in my heart

Exquisitely bored in California
We take our trouble to the Crest
Exquisitely bored in California
Exquisitely bored, Just like all the rest

Comma comma comma comma
Commai commai commai commai
Commu commu commu commu
communi communi communicate

Selbstdarstellung
Gay Talese
Ronald Rocking
Euthanasia

Use the words like flowing river touches
Embraces parting hard steel surfaces reveling pages
Beneath the water skin broken like ice flows
Smashed by iron bows on the back of a whale

Comma comma comma comma
Commai commai commai commai
Commu commu commu commu
  Communicate

Selbstarstellung
Open hearted
Soon forgotten - never parted

Com com communicate
Communicate communicate
Communicate communicate
Via satellite and solid state
Never never hesitate
Communicate communicate
Communicate communicate
Never never hesitate

Reaching leaning scratching vainly
Faces dancing  locked lipped and between thigh secret
Briolette tears drip from frozen masks
As all those death row questions don't get asked

Comma comma comma comma
Commai commai commai commai
Commu commu commu commu
communi communi communicate

Communicate communicate
Communicate communicate
Via satellite and solid state
Never never hesitate
Communicate communicate
Communicate communicate
Never never hesitate

STARDOM IN ACTON

Stardom in Acton that's all they got.
Stardom in Acton that's all they got.
Stardom in Acton that's all they got.

Just like the grub that wriggles to the top of the mass
I'm the first to get hooked
Just like the stub of that long cigarette full of hash
I'm the first to get booked.
But I'm capable
My loves inescapable
Conquering lethargy
I've got energy

Stardom-I want a hit
Want my tan, want my cash, want my innocence
Stardom-I want a script
Want my band, want my stash, want omnipotence

I'll go where the senescent soldier retires
And shiver in south California
Watching the storms and tangled wires
And rivers that meet on the corner
Like some prostitute
Handing round the loot
I am not ashamed
I will stake a claim

Stardom-born in a trunk
Got my home, got my car , got stability
Stardom-I'm Hollywood's son
All alone don't admire anonymity

I'm so angry that you turned me on
I didn't remain your friend for too long
I'm so angry that you turned me on
I didn't stay your friend for too long
I'm so angry that you let me see
My totally futile destiny
I'm so angry-you interrupted my dream
Now I know that the power rests in me.

Stardom-I want a hit
Want my tan, want my cash, want my innocence
Stardom-I want a script
Want my band, want my stash, want omnipotence

Stardom-born in a trunk
Got my home, got my car , got stability
Stardom-I'm Hollywood's son
All alone don't admire anonymity

Stardom in Acton that's all they got.
Stardom in Acton that's all they got.
Stardom in Acton that's all they got
Stardom in Acton that's all they got

Uniforms/Dance It Away
Released on Atco K11751PT, 1982. (UK 12 inch Picture Disk)

I don't matter you don't matter
Neither does this mindless clatter
It don't matter where you're from
What matters is your uniform

Wear your braces round your seat
Doctor Martens on your feet
Keep your barnet very neat
For credibility on street

We are marching as to war
We won't be obscure no more
In uniform - In uniform

I am really living life inside a jar - I'm all alone
So I feel forgiven if I'm under par - a fallen clone
Only in the river can I claim a star to call my own
I'm newly born,
In uniform I'm up on the throne

I am frightened, you are frightened
Should we get our trousers tightened?
Where in Brighton is your norm
Who wears enlightened uniform?

On my Parka is some band
I don't really understand
Perry is my guiding hand
Scooter polo sweeps the land
We are marching as to war
We won't be obscure no more
In uniform - in uniform

People think we dress alike to segregate  identities
Pills or drink or puffing pipes in integrated entities
Then they wink and snort their line and say how great their Bentley is
They feel so warm when they conform. . .

They say that nakedness is what our Lord intended
When we stand naked then we all appear the same
But it's just faking it if we all try pretending
Are we just making all our prayers in the rain
Heaven knows I need new clothes.

We are marching as to war
But we are really fighting for
Our uniform - our uniform

When I contemplate my future I go numb, don't feel a thing
I don't' overrate my suitors number one, I always sing
But the State and their computers make me run for comfort in
My uniform.
In uniform I feel like a king.

They say that nakedness is what our Lord intended
When we stand naked then we all appear the same
But it's just faking it if we all try pretending
Are we just making all our prayers in the rain
It seems insane
But heaven knows
It's all the same
And I need new clothes

When you travel to the green hills of Ayr
Where the sea breaks windows on the border line.
Remember me to a girl who lives there
For she once was a true love of mine.

Please see for me that her red hair is long
And flows and curls down to her back and breast.
Please see for me that her red hair is long
For that's the way I remember her best
North Country girl..........

See that she's warm when the summer ends
When trees are bare and the rivers freeze
She washes her clothes where the river bends
She's working on her knees

See for me that her coat's pulled up close,
And her beret frames her sweet pretty face.
See that she's warm and drink her a toast
For I am exiled in a lonely place.

Please let me know if she remembers me at all,
A hundred times I've hoped and prayed
That way up there near the Roman wall
She didn't suffer when the fall sprayed.

North Country girl.

I stood at the door beside her
But she wouldn't let me pass
I was such a bore and I lied to her
I said I didn't really want her ass
I went away in the mud and rain
The gang became snide and laughed
I was slayed, but I smiled and the pain
Began to subside at last

And when I got back to my hotel
I wondered if the thunder meant I'd landed in hell
And on the forecourt I slipped and fell
I cracked my stupid head and I heard a bell
I thought, hey

Somebody saved me, it happened again
Somebody saved me, I thank you my friend
Somebody saved me, from a fate worse than heaven
'Cause if I'd had her for just an hour
I'd have wanted her forever
Somebody saved me

You would have thought that I'd have learned
Twenty years ago or more
A beautiful girl raised her mouth and yearned
But I didn't know what lips were for
I ran away in the mud and rain
The weather here is never too bright
She'd had an affray with her man and came
For solace and the means to fight

She finally bored with seducing me
And took up with some geezer from the Ealing scene
It nearly killed him like it would've killed me
When her original man snapped his fingers and she obeyed, she obeyed

But somebody saved me, it happened again
Somebody saved me, I thank you my friend
Somebody saved me, from a fate worse than heaven
'Cause if I'd had her for just an hour
I'd have wanted her forever

I don't know about guardian angels
All I know about's staying alive
I can't shout about spiritual labels
When little ones die and big ones thrive

All I know is that I've been making it
And there've been times that I didn't deserve to
Every show there's been more faking it
But right at the point of no return

Somebody saves me, again and again
Somebody saves me, I thank you my friend
Somebody saves me, from a fate worse than heaven
'Cause if I blew it for a single moment
I'd blow it forever
But somebody saves me

I took up the connection once
Made me feel quite aloof
I never could queue to collect my lunch
While I was pursuing the truth
So I left my folks in the mud and rain
It always rains in Sunnyside Road
I lived hippy jokes, getting stoned insane
'Till the rain looked just like snow

But there was a soul in whom I could depend
He worked himself crazy while I laid in bed
I never leaned on a person like I leaned right then
And when I finally woke up clean
My friend was dead, stone dead

Somebody saved me, it happened again
Somebody saved me, I thank you my friend
Somebody saved me, I ain't ready for heaven
'Cause if I'd seen you for a second I'd have wanted to see you forever
Somebody saved me
Somebody saved me

I was just thirty-four years old and I was still wandering in a haze
I was wondering why everyone I met seemed like they were
Lost in a maze

I don't know why I thought I should have some kind of
Divine right to the blues
It's sympathy not tears people need when they're the
Front page sad news.

The incense burned away and the stench began to rise
And lovers now estranged avoided catching each others' eyes

And girls who lost their children cursed the men who fit the coil
And men not fit for marriage took their refuge in the oil
No one respects the flame quite like the fool who's badly burned
From all this you'd imagine that there must be something learned

Slit skirts, Jeanie never wears those slit skirts
I don't ever wear no ripped shirts
Can't pretend that growing older never hurts.

Knee pants, Jeanie never wears no knee pants
Have to be so drunk to try a new dance
So afraid of every new romance

Slit skirts, slit skirt
Jeanie isn't wearing those slit skirts, slit skirt
She wouldn't dare in those slit skirts, slit skirt
Wouldn't be seen dead in no slit skirt

Slit skirts, slit skirt
Jeanie isn't wearing those slit skirts, slit skirt
She wouldn't dare in those slit skirts, slit skirt
Wouldn't be seen dead in no slit skirt

Romance, romance, why aren't we thinking up romance?
Why can't we drink it up true heart romance
Just need a brief new romance

Let me tell you some more about myself, you know I'm sitting at home just now.
The big events of the day are passed and the late TV shows have come around.
I'm number one in the home team, but I still feel unfulfilled.
A silent voice in her broken heart complaining that I'm unskilled.

And I know that when she thinks of me, she thinks of me as him,
But, unlike me, she don't work off her frustration in the gym.

Recriminations fester and the past can never change
A woman's expectations run from both ends of the range

Once she walked with untamed lovers' face between her legs
Now he's cooled and stifled and it's she who has to beg

Slit skirts, Jeanie never wears those slit skirts
And I don't ever wear no ripped shirts
Can't pretend that growing older never hurts

Knee pants, Jeanie never wears no knee pants
We have to be so drunk to try a new dance
So afraid of every new romance

Slit skirts, slit skirt
Jeanie isn't wearing those slit skirts, slit skirt
She wouldn't dare in those slit skirts, slit skirt
Wouldn't be seen dead in no slit skirt

Slit skirts, slit skirt
Jeanie isn't wearing those slit skirts, slit skirt
She wouldn't dare in those slit skirts, slit skirt
Wouldn't be seen dead in no slit skirt

Romance, romance, why aren't we thinking up romance?
Why can't we drink it up true heart romance
Just need a brief new romance

Pete's Listening Time (Promo)
Released on Atco Sam 150, 1982.(UK) Autographed, Very Rare.
Only 1,000 officially autographed by Pete.
Townshend talks about the tracks and music from the LP.

Back cover of the original Atco test pressing.
Vivienne was deleted from the original record "first side" just before release.
Courtesy of White Fangs Who Site.

Vivienne I could have loved you
Vivienne you went to far
Faker that's what I been
With my make up and my false address
Shake up that's what I seen
I was taken by balls I guess
I got to know but feeling I'm height inside light inside
Where has it gone
I got to crawl on the beaches and side the line, find the time, I've got to win this time
Where have you gone.

I'm kicking out in the tracks and the secrets of Babylon
I's kicking down on the directions screw back to Abalone
I feel the same as my friends and my enemies tell me this, who should I blame
Am I too live busted head show me why
Is your kiss just like his, just like his kiss
Are all men the same.

Vivienne I could have loved you
I could have loved you.

Faker that's what I been
With my make up and my false address
Shake up that's what I seen
I was taken by balls I guess
I got to know where the feeling I'm height inside light inside
Where has it gone
I got to crawl on the beaches and side the line, find the time, I've got to win this time
Where have you gone.

I could have loved you
Vivienne I came so only to taking a place at your bar
Innocence up from a trade for a word
Vivienne you went to far.

Man watching was the B-side to Face Dances Part Two
Released on Atco 7-99989, 1982. (USA)
3 different Picture Sleeves of Face Dances Part Two/Man Watching
 were produced in Germany, the UK and USA .

He's a fool let's you know's who you say
You can see him coming a mile away
He's got his lapel cut just a little over displayed
And his shoes could be a problem could get in the way

Watch that man
He's your problem
Got something for ya between his toes
Watch that man
He's your contact
He's got his feather shoved right up your nose

He was born in the future
He's getting born here sometime soon
Getting born in the future
He may made up this rule

They put out a police description out for this guy
You know the kind of a guy with a kind of disguise
I don't know quite if his shoulders are wide
Or quite blue was his blue blue eyes
How wide are his ties
How smooth are his eyes
How big are his feet
He dresses so neat
But he's being followed, followed in the street right now
Just like you and me

Too tong too chong who really cares
If your born with long blond hair
On the boarder was the smoggers and bald pieores
And down on 42nd street with all the love flow whores

Watch that man
He's your problem
Got something for ya between his toes
Watch that man
He's your contact
He's got his feather shoved right up your nose

He was born in the future
Tomorrow we can bring another for the new world
Tomorrow we will bring another soul
Tomorrow we can bring another for the new world
Tomorrow we will bring another soul

Tomorrow we can bring another for the new world
Tomorrow we will bring another soul
Tomorrow we can bring another for the new world
Tomorrow we will bring another soul

He was born in the future
He's getting born here sometime soon
Getting born in the future
He may made up this rule

Dance It Away was the B-side to Uniforms.
Released on Atco K11751, 1982.(UK)

They say we've got nothing left, (Nothing on the ground)
They say we used it all up (in the desert ground)
Got to be so careful with the rest (we'll break it down)
Or else the nukes are gonna play it tough

Well, I can't stand pessimistic, (uptown)
My creepers got to have their faith , (wait around)
There's only one answer I can think of, (another sound)
Just get up and dance it away

Dance it away
Come on and Dance it away
Come on and dance it away
Get up and dance it away

There are children at the bottom of the ocean, (body now)
And, it's so hard to be so far away, (all around)
Some people have forgotten the explosion, (buff your shoes)
Still throwing punches everyday
We'll still like to think we're human, (and we will say)
And we're gonna drown in our own sweet way, (will get you down)
At times it looks confusing, (take it back)
But, Mr. Can we dance it away

Dance it away
Come on and dance it away
Dance it away
Get up and dance it away

Don't worry, Don't worry, Don't worry
Just dance it away

Don't worry, Don't worry, Don't worry
Just dance it away

They say we've got nothing left, (nothing on the ground)
They say we used it all up, (in the desert ground)
Got to be so careful with the rest, (we'll break it down)
Or else the nukes are gonna play it tough

Well, I can't stand because of my stick, (uptown)
My creepers got to have their faith, (wait around)
There's only one answer I can think of, (another sound)
Just get up and dance it away

Come on dance it away
Why don't you just dance it away
Come on and dance it away
Get up and dance it away

Don't worry, Don't worry, Don't worry
Just dance it away

WDK 2008