There were three of us always
Walking abreast
Towards a siesta
In two single beds

The thrill of the bullring
Was our thrill as well
There was blood on the bell-pull
In the hot hotel
Mediterranean

The middle of the world
Two middle-class English boys
And a middle-class English girl
But in the Hotel Marquis de Sade
In the middle of a single bed
The beast with three backs
The beast with three backs
The beast with three backs

And after siesta
The table is set
With a leg and a breast and a drumstick
And we eat and forget

Then Colin loves Alice
And Alice loves me
And I love the stains on the ceiling
And pump like the sea
Mediterranean

The middle of the world
Two middle-class English boys
And a middle-class English girl
But in the Hotel Marquis de Sade
In the middle of a single bed
The beast with three backs
The beast with three backs
The beast with three backs

"Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I don't know whether a man or a woman
But who is that on the other side of you?"

Copyright: Universal Music Publishing Group
Writer(s): NICHOLAS CURRIE