Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back to Leeds

Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back to Leeds
	;
Album	Goths
Released	February 22, 2017
Length	4:18
Previous Track	"Rain in Soho"
Next Track	"The Grey King and the Silver Flame Attunement"

Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back to Leeds is the second song on Goths. It was released as a single on February 22, 2017.

Lyrics[]

There's indifference on the wind
But a faint gust of hope
At a club nobody goes to
With a musty velvet rope
Guys in Motorhead jackets
Who knew him way back when
Haven't raised a drink in years
But now meet up again
To remember how it was when they all thought they'd move away
Ridin' Lotus Sevens through the London streets one day

Nobody ever gets away
Even the best of us come back someday
To the unmarked rooms where the dry dust breeds
Andrew Eldritch is moving back to Leeds

There's a rusted fog machine
In a concrete storage space
Letter-number combinations
With no meaning on its face
They won't make these anymore
It's a wooden coach-and-four
No one will even steal it if you leave it by the door
With no sign to mark its going, no tombstone for its grave
There will be goodbyes by dozens, so practice being brave

No one anticipates the rush
The breezy feeling of the faceless crush
At the end of things where the selvage bleeds
Andrew Eldritch is moving back to Leeds

They don't throw him a parade
He just comes in on a train
One suitcase in his hand
And an old army backpack
From the second World War
From a Leipzig second-hand store

Pick the keys up from the agent
Everything's been taken care of
No big changes in the roadways
Since you left, that I'm aware of
A few old buildings gone to dust
And some new ones in the way
They'll look just like the old ones when the winds have had their say
See the children bound for London
You'll all be back too
Everybody tests the membrane
But no one pushes through

Come on boys, that'll be enough
You'd think your old friends wouldn't play so tough
Like a basket by the Nile hiding down among the reeds
Andrew Eldritch is moving back to Leeds

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]

"In the lyric, I imagine one of my teenage heroes, Andrew Eldritch, returning to the town where the band worked and played when they were young. His friends give him a hard time about ending up back where he started, but not because they’re mad: it’s good to see an old friend wearing the marks of time on his hands and face like well-loved tattoos." -- 2017 press release
"This one is ... I feel like it's actually the first one I wrote for [Goths], but I wrote the first half of it on vacation with a baby ... right? And if you have a baby, you can't finish the song sometimes, because the baby has other plans. So I wrote a verse –– I think the baby had gone to bed. Sometimes if it's a two- or three-year-old, you have ten minutes to do what you want to do before you pass out. So that's what it was. It was 9:00 on the beach, I have an idea. Wrote down a verse and a chorus, let it sit for two months, came back to it later and I actually think that energy informs the entire album." –– 2023-04-18 – Empire Live – Albany, NY

Things Referenced in this Song[]

Andrew Eldritch is the frontman of the British post-punk band The Sisters of Mercy.
The Lotus Seven is a British 2-seater sports car.

Live Shows this Song Was Played at[]

Videos of this Song[]

Goths

Track list: "Rain in Soho" • "Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back to Leeds" • "The Grey King and the Silver Flame Attunement" • "We Do It Different on the West Coast" • "Unicorn Tolerance" • "Stench of the Unburied" • "Wear Black" • "Paid in Cocaine" • "Rage of Travers" • "Shelved" • "For the Portuguese Goth Metal Bands" • "Abandoned Flesh"
Bonus tracks: "For the West Coast Dark Ambient Bedroom Warriors" • "Scaling the Well" • "Vanishing Act" • "Grave Dust"

Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back to Leeds

Contents

Lyrics[]

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]

Things Referenced in this Song[]

Live Shows this Song Was Played at[]

Videos of this Song[]

Fan Feed

Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back to Leeds

Album	Goths
Released	February 22, 2017
Length	4:18
Previous Track	"Rain in Soho"
Next Track	"The Grey King and the Silver Flame Attunement"