Salomey Maloney, Queen of the Ritz

For those of you too young to have seen the Bard of Salford, punk-poet John Cooper Clarke in full flow, you have to imagine this would have been delivered in a fast, aggressive, Salford accent.

SALOMEY MALONEY

I was walking down Oxford Road
Dressed in what they call the mode
I could hear them spinning all their smash hits
At the mecca of the modern dance, the Ritz

My feet foxtrotted
My shoulders did the shimmy
The bouncer on the door said "a gimme, gimme, gimme"
I gave 'em the tickets, they gave me the shits
No healthy arguments... in the Ritz

Standing by the cig' machine, who did I see
In lurex and terylene, she hypnotised me
I asked her name, she said it's...
"Salomey Maloney, Queen of the Ritz"

Lacquered in a beehive
Her barnet didn't budge
Wet-look lips, she smiled as sweet as fudge
She had a number on her back
And sequins on her tits
The sartorial requirements
For females in the Ritz

A man making like Fred Astaire
Complete with spats and tails
A Douglas Fairbanks moustache
Dirty fingernails
Whose snide innuendo was as subtle as the blitz
Waltzed off with Salomey in his greasy little mitts

Standing in the dandruff light
Trying to get pissed
Amongst the head-lice, Old Spice, Brut and body mist
How can she be seen dead
Dancing with that tit
Her being Salomey, el Supremo of the Ritz

Tables flew, bottles broke
The bouncers shouted "lumber"
The dummy got too chummy
In a Bing Crosby number
The bouncers said it's suicide
Trying to get your mitts
On Salomey Maloney, the Queen of the Ritz

When the ambulances came,
She was lying on the deck
She'd fell off her stiletto heels
And broke her fucking neck
The band threw down their instruments
The management threw fits
She's dead. She don't bring the business to the Ritz

The over twenty-one's night said it was a shame
The divorcee club will never be the same
Joe Loss killed himself and Vic Sylvester quit
When the death dance drama did away with the Ritz

When the last waltz withered
And the quickstep stopped
The ladies excuse me was permanently blocked
And mecca make a living
Selling little bits
Of Salomey Maloney
In the wreckage of the Ritz

lyrics © john cooper clarke