The Guitar-Shaped Swimming Pool
- from the Hitsville House Band album 12 O'Clock Stereo

The guitar-shaped swimming pool was a lie
The impression he gave her of life in the jet set was not quite right
He was nothing more or less than a humble pig farmer
With six filthy kids and a big ugly wife

But with a guitar in his hand he was a heartbreaking hero
Debonair and handsome singing all his songs
About life and love and living and sunshine and freedom
Charming all the girls with a wink of his eye and a song

Marie Louisa worked in a canteen
Supplying the workforce with hamburgers coffee and tea
She was nothing more or less than a small town dreamer
Yearning for a gap in her workaday routine

Dreaming of the day when a night in shining armour
Would ride into town and sweep her off her feet
Sing her some songs about life and love and living
And carry her away from the dull daily grind of the canteen

She swore that the day her prince would come
She would follow him anywhere stop working at the canteen as well
So when he came into town sang his songs and left her spellbound
She packed up her trousseau and caught the train to hell

With a guitar in his hand he was devilish and handsome
His voice was like silver as he sang her all his songs
And with a twinkle in his eye he told her all about his mansion
Called her his princess and painted her a picture that was wrong

The guitar-shaped swimming pool was a lie...

words and music Eric Goulden (MCPS / Copyright Control)





The Guitar-Shaped Swimming Pool is a sort of anti-country song. I wrote it in France. The idea came from a postcard from I found in the local town, one of those slightly twee postcards depicting rural life in Olden Tymes - a peasant family standing outside a tumbledown thatched hovel, clutching pitchforks and showing off the prize pig. If you sent that what would you say? The guitar-shaped swimming pool was a lie.

I wrote it round about the time of the German re-unification so I wanted to get a bit of an East German vibe into it - Marie Louisa works in a canteen...
I think a lot of East Germans were terribly disillusioned with the West after a while.

My publisher at the time was the producer Denny Cordell. (He produced Whiter Shade Of Pale by Procul Harum, With A Little Help From My Friends by Joe Cocker, all the Move hits up until Blackberry Way - loads of great records!) Denny carried a tape of the song with him everywhere. He wanted to get it covered by an established country singer - his idea was Jerry Reed or Ray Stevens. It never happened because Denny sadly died of cancer.

I recorded the song with the Hitsville House Band for our 12 O'Clock Stereo album which came out in 1995 in the US and 1996 in Europe.