Track 10 of the album The Pier Is Shut Till Easter · 2025
Dance With Me on the Empty Promenade
“The deckchairs are stacked in a chain and the promenade is all ours. Dancing in an empty seaside town is one of life's very best secrets.”
acoustic · seaside folk · romantic parlour waltz · 4:07
Lyrics
The ice cream hut has shuttered up its window The deckchairs are stacked in a chain There's nobody here but the gulls and the grey tide And you, in your scarf, in the rain The band stand is empty, the paint is peeling The pier lights are sleeping till May But you hold out your hand like it's a ballroom And the wet wind starts to play Dance with me on the empty promenade Nobody's watching, nobody's here Salt on your collar and sea in your hair Slow steps in the winter air Dance with me on the empty promenade The town is ours when the town is closed I'd rather have the quiet and the cold with you Than a summer crowd I don't know We bought two teas from the one café open Paper cups warming our hands You hummed the tune that we danced to at twenty And I swear that the sea understands Dance with me on the empty promenade Nobody's watching, nobody's here Salt on your collar and sea in your hair Slow steps in the winter air Dance with me on the empty promenade The town is ours when the town is closed I'd rather have the quiet and the cold with you Than a summer crowd I don't know Forty years of seasons, in and out Busy summers, lonely shore But the best of it is this grey hour When there's nothing to be there for Dance with me on the empty promenade Nobody's watching, nobody's here Salt on your collar and sea in your hair Slow steps in the winter air Dance with me on the empty promenade The town is ours when the town is closed I'd rather have the quiet and the cold with you Than a summer crowd I don't know Dance with me, dance with me On the empty promenade