The Last of the Breed - Peter Sarstedt

On golden sandals you walk marble terraces

In Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro

In the company of people with money and looks

A most studied and glittering scenario

Great names in politics and charity adore you

In ballrooms with diamonds and dancing

Laughing but serious, poise and certainty

Every move made career, enhancing

A major player in the world of Haute Couture

At the salons of Paris and Milano

Somehow you’ve delayed the ageing process

Looking stunning in John Galliano

You keep your secrets inside Marie-Claire

What right have the paparazzi to pry?

No-one's interested in knowing the truth

But they’ll always believe in a lie

So, act out the destiny

Play out the role

Follow the romantic creed

You are the last of the breed

Years spent in agony at the Ballet de Rousse

Too tall for a Prima Ballerina

A figure so graceful in a non-classical sense

Would have delighted Nureyev, had he seen her

Face slightly imperfect, a mirror underwater

Isabella Rossellini from a distance

Eyes evanescent, lapis flecked with gold

As though from the very roots of existence

You keep your secrets inside Marie-Claire

What right have the paparazzi to pry?

No-one's interested in knowing the truth

But they’ll always believe in a lie

So, act out the destiny

Play out the role

Follow the romantic creed

You are the last of the breed

Those times with the famous, in Palm Beach and Long Island

The winters in Gstaad and Colorado

They were whimsical seasons, impossibly shallow

Hostage to a ridiculous bravado

Time came to leave and return to Europe

Promising there would be no more marriages

And, while Harrods refurbished the Belgravia mansion

You moved to the penthouse at Claridge’s

You keep your secrets inside Marie-Claire

What right have the paparazzi to pry?

No-one's interested in knowing the truth

But they’ll always believe in a lie

So, act out the destiny

Play out the role

Follow the romantic creed

You are the last of the breed

And there he stood, as sad as Jerusalem

Stone-eyed and gaunt in the silence.