Something About Ysabel’s Dance Peter Hammill

[Verse 1]
In the new hotel, on Fiesta Night, the staff are bored;
Donna Ysabel dances zombie-like, the guests applaud...
The color is local, the tourists are tanned
The natives are restless and everything's second-hand

[Verse 2]
Places disappear, but the names endure as alibis;
Memory's hazy here, no-one's really sure of how time flies...
Well drunk, the bass player cries into his beer –
Are Ysabel's mother or Ysabel dancing here?

[Chorus]
After hours all the couriers are in the bar
Round the corner with the drivers in a game of cards...
In bursts Ysabel, her hair let loose, her limbs set free;
On the tabletops she's dancing to a memory –
Conversation stops and every eye is turned to see...
Something about Ysabel's dance

[Verse 3]
It's a shrinking world, it's a fun-packed cruise, a museum trip:
Skirt the native girl, check the rabid dog, rejoin the ship
There's no Charlie Mingus, his Tijuana's gone...
This smile for the camera is all just a tourist con