From the recording The Emergent Sea

There is a Japanese saying that goes: no one is as lonely as the married. This song was written when I found myself in that position. Going through a major life decision about my future, I found my partner totally unreceptive to my need to talk about it and found myself thus talking out of pure necessity and chance to someone else resulting in the dangerous stirring of both emotions and ideas contrary to one form of that ancient institution. The song comes to a key truth for me about love and marriage: the ability to communicate your heart is what makes or breaks it.

Lyrics

Long Talk Off a Short Beer (c) Keith Adams, 1989
1. Sweet Loneliness with the brilliant mind, smile so shy, wide open eyes and I, we were talking into the wee hours of the night. Until the paper man came through the bar, dispelled love's dew with the morning Star, and pages of fright, printed full of false wrongs and rights.    And we had almost touched upon     the matters that were closest to our hearts.     But the outside world reminded us    that us two we were to keep apart. Apart from: 
Chorus: Contact with you,            it's something I got to do.            You need contact with me,            that's something that I can see.2. It started with a long talk off of a short beer and we were in deep waters, falling off the pier. The pier of peers, the pier of fears of morals and of shame, of married man and married dame, living on monogamy lane     with hearts so alone and spirits so lame,     lame from a lack of contact.    What we need is contact,        need not involve sex, just might. 
Bridge: Might be words or eyes, but we two must realize that we, in this darkest age, have broke the pier and skipped the page and made
(Repeat Chorus)
Bridge 3: But now we're swimming, oh yes, we're swimming in waters over our heads and one too many beers and all our words of love crash upon the piers and stumble across the page, for we are but waders in this loneliness game.
3. Sweet loneliness with brilliant mind, smile so shy, wide open eyes and I, we were talking 'to the wee hours of the night. It started with a long talk off of a short beer and we were in deep waters, falling off of the pier,      But now we're swimming, oh, yes we're swimming      in waters over our heads, and one too many beers,      and all our words of love crash upon the piers      of morals and fears and shame of married man and married dame      living on monogamy lane with hearts so alone and spirits so lame,      lame from a lack of
(Last Chorus):           Contact. What we need is contact.            Gimme contact. Gimme gimme, gimme contact!            What I need is contact, contact with you!