///*****/// [Intro] A church hall and a bad coffee And a circle of grey chairs [Verse 1] My name does not matter And I have said it here before And the ceiling light still buzzes And the linoleum still floors And there is a man beside me shaking Who came in from the cold And I was him in eighty-four And somebody held on So I will do the holding Though I am not much of a saint I have got eleven years of Tuesdays And a hand that does not shake [Pre-Chorus] And they ask me for the story And I give it to them straight There is no romance in the gutter And no poetry in the waste [Chorus] It was the bottle and the blame And I could not tell them apart One of them was in my hand And one was in my heart I drank because I hated me And I hated me because I drank And that circle nearly killed me Till a stranger cut the strand The bottle and the blame [Verse 2] I lost my wife on a Sunday And I do not blame her now She stood there in the driveway And she said I had to choose And I chose it standing up Like a fool with a good excuse And I called her from a phone box Twenty minutes after noon And I said the thing I always said And she said she'd heard it all And the click was very quiet And it was the loudest sound of all [Pre-Chorus] So I went down for eleven months Below the ground and under And I woke up in a hospital With my whole life come asunder [Chorus] It was the bottle and the blame And I could not tell them apart One of them was in my hand And one was in my heart I drank because I hated me And I hated me because I drank And that circle nearly killed me Till a stranger cut the strand The bottle and the blame [Verse 3] Now my daughter lets me see the kids On a Saturday at two And she watches me the whole time Like a lifeguard at a pool And that is fair and that is right And I have earned every look And I will earn it back a hundred times And I will never close the book And last October she called me Dad And not by my first name And I went out to the parking lot And I cried into the rain [Pre-Chorus] So if you are in the doorway And you cannot come inside Just come and get the coffee You do not have to decide [Bridge] It does not go away And it is not supposed to It just gets quieter Till you can hear the rest of you And there is a rest of you in there And I promise it is true [Guitar Solo] [Final Chorus] It was the bottle and the blame And I have told them both apart One of them is in the past And one is in my heart I do not drink because I hate me And I do not hate me now And the circle finally broke And I am standing on the ground Past the bottle and the blame [Coda] So take the folding chair And take the bad coffee too And do not say a single word Until you want to There is nobody here judging There is nobody here brave Just a room of ordinary people Getting through another day [Outro] A church hall and a bad coffee And a circle of grey chairs And a man who came in from the cold And a man who cared
