[Verse 1]
Thinkin' 'bout the times you drove in my car
Thinkin' that I might have drove you too far
And I'm thinkin' 'bout the love that you laid on my table
[Verse 2]
I told you not to wander 'round in the dark
I told you 'bout the swans that they live in the park
Then I told you 'bout our kid, now he's married to Mabel
[Bridge]
Yes, I told you that the light goes up and down
Don't you notice how the wheel goes 'round?
And you'd better pick yourself up from the ground
Before they bring the curtain down
Yes, before they bring the curtain down, woo-ooh
[Guitar Solo]
Get up, get up, get up
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
[Verse 3]
Talkin' 'bout a girl that looks quite like you
She didn't have the time to wait in the queue
She cried away her life since she fell off the cradle
"Badge" is a song written by Eric Clapton and George Harrison, and recorded by British rock music group Cream on their final album, Goodbye. Also issued as a single in March 1969, "Badge" peaked at number 18 in the UK Singles Chart and number 60 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Composition
"Badge" was originally an untitled track. During the production transfer for the album Goodbye, the original music sheet was used to produce the liner notes and track listing. The only discernible word on the page was "bridge" (indicating the song's bridge section). Due to Harrison's handwriting, however, Clapton misread it as "badge"—and the song was titled soon thereafter.
Harrison remembered the story thus:
I helped Eric write "Badge" you know. Each of them had to come up with a song for that Goodbye Cream album and Eric didn't have his written. We were working across from each other and I was writing the lyrics down and we came to the middle part so I wrote 'Bridge.' Eric read it upside down and cracked up laughing – 'What's BADGE?' he said. After that, Ringo [Starr] walked in drunk and gave us that line about the swans living in the park.
Common legends or misconceptions are that the name came about because its chord progression was B–A–D–G–E (which is not true) or simply because the notation of a guitar's standard tuning (E–A–D–G–B–E) can be arranged to spell "Badge".
Reception
Cash Box said "More subdued drumming and almost conventional instrumental work show the Cream in a new light, one which should have a tremendous impact on listeners of cleaner-cut rock who may not have been into the blues outings that hit earlier." Billboard called it an "easy beat, driving rocker."