London timed where it all began
A plethora of transport choices
Places to look at the floor and know to use your voices
To harrumph at the indignity of it all
To look at your phone and hope that nobody calls
Get up and leave the germ vans
Where to talk
Is an agony
Leave the wagon
Be a flâneur and walk
Daniel Defoe was a man in the mode
He would, taking a stroll through the London of old
Thomas De Quincy would
Go for a mince he was
Wandering since, he became convinced to
Try something stronger than gin
Do, in trail, the dens, and the inns
Perhaps he might pass outside the kind of door
Behind which Louis Stevenson would hide
(See, hyde with a y, get it)
I, myself, artist and critic at once
Head to Lord's for the cricket after lunch
Then find myself in Holland Park, or in Leyton House Gardens
For a clip after dark
I cover ground on these streets like no other
Or join Mr. Drummond on a manhole cover
I perambulate around the town too late
Then retrace the steps of the nation's greats
Because I am the last of the unknown international flâneurs
What did that chap say?
Paris
Then would take up the gauntlets
Around the Arkay's and Horn's I'd saunter
I want to have a sit-down but there's just so much to see
[?] and B flanning around Paris
Embracing the present
Surroundings so pleasant
Missed the metro, slept in bin bags like the Paris Peasant, Aragon
We perambulate the city without stopping
I'll tell you what we're not doing though
We're not shopping
It's the [?] to we who believe
That a weave around the streets is a way to achieve enlightenment
And revolutionary zeal
If only we could be bothered to make the thing real
[?] or is it ghee(?)
Got close enough but his propensity to G and T
Meant he was always stopping and topping up
He got the hump and left the crot up in pubs
Myself, I'd like to think I'm following up
I'll take his drink but I've merely borrowed the cup
Because I am the last of the unknown international flâneurs
(Excitable chap isn't he, what)
New York ought to get an honorary nod
The American city one can perambulate slipshod
The diliberdation(?) of the others is ill
San Francisco's nice but too many ruddy hills
Manhattan itself is a city planner's dream
But impossible to get lost
So a flâneur would deem it a failure
Until he reaches the white horse
Where Dylan Thomas held his final discourse
On whether or not he invented rap
That's an argument for another time, odd chap
The urban drifter
A philosophy to last
Viewing the present through the prism of the past
Tricksters and pranksters and tramps and dandies
Genius loci with a hip flask of brandy
Bandying about theories upon never stick
Strolling 'round town like a right clever dick
I am the last of the unknown international flâneurs
Yes, I am the last of the unknown international flâneurs
That's right, I am the last of the unknown international flâneurs
You know who I am, that's right, international flâneurs