Englishman In New York Lyrics

Where to find accurate Englishman In New York Lyrics and what to watch out for

I run into this problem constantly when helping people track down song lyrics. People end up on lyric sites that have been scraped and re-scraped until the actual words are lost somewhere under typos, fan corrections, and bad auto-tune transcriptions. It's not that hard to get the right version if you know what to look for, but most sites don't care about accuracy. They just want your ad clicks. Sting wrote "Englishman In New York" in 1987. The song is about Quentin Crisp, a British eccentric who lived in New York City. The lyrics describe his mannered way of carrying himself through the city. If you're looking for the actual words, the official studio recording on the album "Nothing Like The Sun" is your primary source. The lyrics are available on licensed lyric platforms like LyricFind, Genius, and AZLyrics. Those three sites tend to have the most accurate versions because they either license the text directly or have crowdsourced verification systems.

Englishman In New York Lyrics

The official lyrics run something like this: "He walks like a lady, he talks like a gentleman / He stays clean in the slums, and he dresses sometimes in pastel / He drinks champagne when he's hungry, he eats with a knife and a fork / He says 'Please' and he says 'Excuse me' when he burps in the face of a storm." That middle section about the opera and the stiff upper lip is what most people remember. The song has these verses that build on each other, describing Quentin Crisp's refusal to adapt his behavior to his surroundings. It's a fairly short song—around three and a half minutes on the album. If you want the complete text, check the album liner notes or a licensed lyric database. Fan transcriptions on Reddit threads are hit or miss. I once spent twenty minutes cross-referencing three different sources just to confirm whether a line said "stiff upper lip" or "quiet resolve." Turns out it was neither — it was "with a stiff upper lip, he gets by." Small detail, but it changes how you sing it. Here's the part nobody tells you: most lyric sites have at least one verse that's wrong. Not every version gets the second verse right. The version I just quoted above is the one from the official album release. Some sites list a slightly different third verse that Sting doesn't actually sing. It happens because bootleg recordings and live versions sometimes vary, and people copy each other's mistakes. If you're using these lyrics to learn the song or for any performance purpose, always verify against the studio recording. It saves you the embarrassment of singing the wrong words in front of someone who knows the song.

For the actual full lyrics, your best options are the official lyrics pages on Sting's website, the Warner Music Group lyric database, or the Genius page which has the verified annotations. Those are the places I go to first. Any other site is fine for a quick reference, but I don't trust them for accuracy without double-checking. One practical thing that trips people up: the bridge section. The line about "an Englishman in New York" repeating is easy to mishear. It's not "in the New York" — it's just "in New York." I've seen that mistake in printed lyric sheets and even on a couple of music instruction sites. It's a small thing but it affects the rhythm if you're trying to match the phrasing to the melody. The song has a fairly straightforward structure: verse, chorus, verse, bridge, verse, outro. That's it. Four verses and a repeating chorus. Nothing complicated about the arrangement, which is probably why so many amateur transcriptions get it wrong — people assume simple means unimportant to verify. If you need the lyrics for a cover performance or a karaoke setup, make sure the timing matches the original tempo. The studio version is in roughly 4/4 time at about 112 beats per minute. A lot of lyric sites don't include timing information, so you'll be guessing where each line falls. I usually pull the lyrics alongside the official audio and mark the timestamps myself. Takes about ten minutes and it's worth it if you're actually performing it.

There isn't really a shortcut for getting perfect lyrics. The work is just checking the sources. I don't recommend trusting any single site. Two or three cross-references and you'll be fine. The song is well documented, so the correct versions are easy to find if you're patient about it.