Ted

Lyrics

[Intro]
(a camera shutter — and someone stepping out of frame)
There is no Ted.
There has never been a Ted.

[Verse 1]
Ray Kelvin opened up a shirt shop in Glasgow,
nineteen eighty-eight, and he needed a name to go
on the front of it, and he didn't want to use his own,
so he made a man up out of nothing and he sent him out alone.
Ted Baker. Just a name. Just a good and solid name.
Sounds like a person you could trust. That's the entire game.

[Chorus]
Ted! There is no Ted! There has never been a Ted!
And the man who made him up would not be photographed instead —
he'd hide behind a plant, he'd hold a hat before his face,
he'd duck out of the picture and let Ted stand in his place.
Ted. There is no Ted. But Ted has forty shops.
And the man who isn't Ted was standing just outside the shot.

[Verse 2]
Now that's a curious inversion of the usual complaint —
most men want the credit and they'll fight you for the name.
This one built a stranger and then hid inside the shade of him,
gave him all the frontage and took none of it himself.
Was it modesty? Was it mischief? Was it just a bit of fun?
He said it kept the focus on the shirts. Perhaps it's that. Perhaps.

[Chorus]

[Bridge]
There's a freedom in a made-up man that a real one never gets:
Ted can be whatever the season needs him to be.
Ted has no opinions that could ever be misquoted.
Ted will never age, offend, or die, or be misunderstood.
The perfect founder is the one who cannot speak.
That's not a flaw in the design. That's the design.

[Chorus]

[Outro]
(shutter again, and again nobody in frame)
Ask for Ted.
Go on. Ask for Ted.