Lyric of the Week | Dire Straits > December 1, 2008

Stepping out to Angellucci’s for my coffee beans / Checking out the movies and the magazines / The waitress she watches me crossing from the Barocco Bar / I get a pickup for my steel guitar

“Wild West End”

Stepping out to Angellucci’s for my coffee beans
Checking out the movies and the magazines
The waitress she watches me crossing from the Barocco Bar
I get a pickup for my steel guitar
I saw you walking out down Shaftesbury Avenue
Excuse me talking I wanna marry you
This is seventh heaven street to me
Don’t seem so proud
You’re just another angel in the crowd
And I’m walking in the wild West End
Walking with your wild best friend

And my conductress on the number nineteen
She was a honey
Pink toenails and hands all dirty with money
Greasy, greasy, greasy hair, easy smile
Made me feel nineteen for a while
And I went down to Chinatown
In the backroom it’s a man’s world
All the money go down
Duck inside the doorway gotta duck to eat
Just ain’t no way
You and me we can’t beat

Walking in the wild West End
Walking with your wild best friend

And a gogo dancing girl yes I saw her
The DJ he say, “Here’s Mandy for ya”
I feel alright seein’ her do that stuff
She’s dancing high and I move on by
The close ups can get rough
When you’re walking in the wild West End

Written by Mark Knopfler

“Wild West End” was originally released on Dire Strait’s eponymous first album in 1978.