#----------------------------------PLEASE NOTE--------------------------------# #This file is the author's own work and represents their interpretation of the# #song. You may only use this file for private study, scholarship, or research.# #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------# Anyone else remember this non-hit by David McWilliams? It reached #2 in Albany, NY - where the WPTR-AM production staff even concocted a parody version, 'Days of Mark Allen', about one of their DJs - but it apparently wasn't a hit anywhere else in the US, since the best it could do nationally was to squeak onto the bottom rung of Billboard's _Bubbling Under_ chart for a single week in June, 1968. Notes: 1) the Grass Roots covered it on one of their albums; 2) according to net.correspondent Maurizio Codogno, it was a hit in Italy (as _Il Volto Della Vita_) for Caterina Caselli; 3) the filtered vocal on the chorus - not to mention the subject matter - predated _Aqualung_ by about three years; 4) Marc Almond's remake was a big hit in the UK in 1992; his version features an extra verse: A tenement, a dirty street Remember worn and shoeless feet Remember how you stood to beat The way your life had gone So Pearly don't you shed more tears For those best forgotten years Those tenements are memories Of where you've risen from "Days of Pearly Spencer" (David McWilliams) Intro: Am (strings alone first two bars; w/arpeggiated guitar next two bars; w/bass and drums next two bars and into verse) Verse 1: Am A tenement, a dirty street Em Walked and worn by shoeless feet Am In silence long and so complete C G Watched by a shivering sun Old eyes in a small child's face Watching as the shadows race Through walls and cracks that leave no trace And daylight's brightness shun Chorus (w/filtered vocal): Dm Em Am The days of Pearly Spencer Dm Em Am Ahh..ahh the race is almost run Verse 2: Nose pressed hard on frosted glass Gazing as the swollen mass On concrete fields where grows no grass Stumbles blindly on Iron trees smother the air But, withering, they stand and stare Through eyes that neither know nor care Where the grass has gone [repeat chorus] Verse 3: Pearly, where's your milk-white skin What's that stubble on your chin It's buried in the rotgut gin You've played and lost, not won You played a house that can't be beat Now look, your head's bowed in defeat You walked too far along the street Where only rats can run [repeat chorus; fade 2nd time] -- another ace 60's tab from Andrew Rogers