Song picture
BOC 10 Central Park Manoeuvres (1968)
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A frustrated youth's rant!
desire frustration
Artist picture
Singer-songwriter, arranger and producer: acoustic contemporary folk but ranging into rock/blues/country/jazz/humour...all very eclectic, I'm afraid!
Martin Stirrup Singer/songwriter An old folkie who got back into it... These days I sing and play guitar(s) and other stringed instruments, then score and orchestrate where appropriate. My taste becomes increasingly eclectic ranging from finger-picked folk through country to soft rock mixed in with a few more alternative and eccentric numbers, including the odd novelty foxtrot...
Song Info
Genre
Acoustic • Acoustic General
Author
Martin Stirrup
Rights
Martin Stirrup
Uploaded
January 06, 2026
Track Files
MP3
MP3 8.2 MB • 320 kbps • 3:36
Lossless
WAV 36.3 MB
Story behind the song
A cry from the frustrated adolescent male heart! A very early song that I stop playing for a while as I thought it too simple (and strummed, too...). It was rehabilitated when a Cambridge guitarist who’d played with Nick Drake the year before said they liked it. The title is of course a nod to Al Stewart’s Swiss Cottage Manoeuvres (in which he suffered less frustration); the Central Park in question is if course East Ham, not New York.
Lyrics
She walks through the park with her dazzling beauty You see her go by you think she looks fruity You’re feeling so high think you might try maybe you’ll take her But try as you may you’ll have to pay you’ll never make her She really looks good in short skirt and tight sweater Her figure’s so fine, legs couldn’t be better She sits on your bench you’re feeling so tense she really looks randy She gets out a book you have a good look but it’s only the Dandy You say hello and get ready to follow She makes a remark but her voice sounds so hollow she gives you a look goes back to her book she pays no attention for emotion she lacks she’s frightened by sex she believes in abstention you try one more time and this time you get talking you say she looks nice she gets up and starts walking you can’t make her out you’re really in doubt you can’t understand her she’s brushed you aside fractured your pride still you feel you must land her you follow her down she stops and turns slowly she asks what you want she sounds almost holy you rush to her feet say she looks sweet and ask her out for tomorrow your pulse starts to race but she laughs in your face and leaves you in sorrow one day she will find when her beauty has withered nobody will care no one will be bothered she’ll be left on her own numb to the bone she’ll always be lonely but she cannot complain she’ll inherit her pain the fault’s here and hers only
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