Petty (Thief) Lout

(1)

Up the drain pipe
Rapid he did sprout
Grey tempus onus he had to inflict (2)
TV documentary that it produced

When he whistled in the street
The men would turn around in fear
Of being thought effete

Petty thief lout
Petty thief lout

Up the drain pipe
Rapid he did sprout
Crime

Hides records in his drawer at home
Especially when they are rare
Never gives 'em out to every Tom Dick & Harry
Who stole before from petty thief lout

Petty thief lout

On the drain pipe
Rapid he did sprout
Grey templates on us he had to inflict

Suburbia holds
more than you care for
Suburbia holds more than you care for
Suburbia holds... 

One must make sure
When leaving the house
Never to have white powder on the nose about

F-prints
F-prints on the fingers
Sprout
Sprout
Petty thief lout
Petty thief lout

Great tempus onus
Suburbia holds more than you care for
Great tempus onus

Petty thief lout
Suburbia holds more than you care for
Suburbia holds more than you care for
Suburbia holds more than you care for
Suburbia holds more than you care for
Petty 
Suburbia holds more than you care for
Thief
Suburbia holds more than you care for
Petty thief lout
Suburbia holds more than you care for
Petty thief lout

1. From Reformation:

Of the lyrics, MES had this to say: "It's about my early teenage years, when I hung around with petty criminals. It's about petty crime, by people under sixteen years old."

^

2.  If this transcription is correct,  the following may be relevant:

Tempus means "time" in Latin, and means "tense" (in the grammatical sense) in German, Swedish and Finnish. Onus means burden, accountability or responsibility in both Latin and English. I have found the phrase attested on the internet, but I don't know Latin, and I can't tell if onus refers directly back to tempus in any of the sentences I've found, nor do I know if the grammar suggests that it should. Tempus ortus means "time of birth," I discovered, since Google is inexact when searching scanned script and the "rt" looked like an 'n' to it. Since I'm unhip to the grammar, I'm not sure if the full hybrid line should be "the great burden of time," or maybe something like "the time of a great burden" or "time burdens the great." The line is hard to hear clearly, and I'm unsure of the source that the Lyrics Parade relied on for this lyric, so anyway it's best not to make too much of it.

^

Petty (Thief) Lout: Fall Tracks A-Z

The Story of the Fall: 1985