The Sell-By Date

Imagine a parade of dilapidated shops in a parallel dimension on another planet. Something very bad must have happened here - the planet may never recover - but the people who live here are almost like us - we can go and see them if you like. Look at them - they wear the same shabby fleeces, the same grubby sports bras - they eat frozen foods and drink cut-price beer and lead meaningless lives that they fill with TV in a place where the wind blows dust across concrete and one man's misery is another's family home, light-years beyond the sell-by date in a parallel dimension in time and space.

There's a charity shop at the edge of the world
In a parade of dilapidated shops
Where people who haven't got much give away
The things they don't want anymore

There's a stack of old love affairs
A box of broken dreams
Gathering dust nest to some abandoned schemes
And further on down the parade

There's a supermarket selling discontinued lines
Where the ladies at the check-out look like Reader's Wives
'Cause these are hard times
And this is a hard place

In a parallel dimension in time and space

It's only the will not to die
That's keeping these people alive
In a parallel dimension in time and space
Light-years beyond the sell-by date

You could take us there with that frown on your face
Let's go to town but let's get out of this place
It's only the will not to die
That's keeping us both alive
In a parallel dimension in time and space
Light-years beyond our sell-by date
We're light-years beyond our sell-by date

words and music Eric Goulden (Fire Publishing)