Elvis Costello Album

Siren is bending, the radio humming,
Sun is breaking through and the storm is coming
The score is obscure, the melody fractured
It went by my window
Refused to be captured

I hope that I wake up in time

Good King Neptune came flipping up my street
He was a sad case tripping up the staircase
Friends and relations are laughing at my head
Gathered like crows at the end of my bed

I hope that I wake up in time

If you can't or can't quite
Think again
You can't fight
That you might
Not be smite
If it's wrong, it's not right
LyricsI say it once and I'll say it again
Now and forever and ever, amen

Siren is bending, the radio is humming,
Who do you love now and who are you damning?
The score is obscure and the melody fractured
The bird by my window refused to be captured

I hope I wake up in time

If you can or can't quite
Think again
You can't fight
That you might
Not be smite
If it's wrong, it's not right
I'll say it once and I'll say it again
Life is a beautiful thing

I've said it before
I can't say it much more
Life is a beautiful thing

Figure hanging on a leather band
Cog consults the watch he cups in his hand
Bejewelled movement measures lost and vanished time
Pray for the boy who makes his bed in cold earth and quicklime

So stay the hands, arrest the time
Till I am captured by your touch
Blessings I don't count
Small mercies and such
The flags may lower as we approach the favourite hour

Now there's a tragic waste of brutal youth
Strip and polish this unvarnished truth
The tricky door that gapes beneath the ragged noose
The crippled verdict begs again for the lamest excuse

So stay the hands, arrest the time
Till I am captured by your touch
Blessings I don't count
Small mercies and such
The flags may lower as we approach the favourite hour
Put out my eyes so I may never spy
Waving branches as they're waving goodbye
Their vile perfume brings to my mouth a bitter taste
The murmuring brooks had best speak up, it's a terrible waste

So stay the hands, arrest the time
Till I am captured by your touch
Blessings I don't count
Small mercies and such
The flags may lower as we approach the favourite hour

Well, you're standing on the corner flagging all the girls you see
Now do like EC and let those ladies be
You know that's wrong, man, you know that's wrong
Boy, you better get control - that's how you got killed before

That girl you just met who got a big guy for a pal
Who'll put knots on your head for messing with his gal
So take it steady, man, let those women go
Well, I'm just trying to tell you - that's how you got killed before

Now, you wouldn't listen, Ephrom, you got two black eyes
That's what you get, Daddy, for messing with men's wives
So take it steady, whoa, let those women go
Well, I'm just trying to tell you - that's how you got killed before

Upon a veil of midnight blue
There hung a crescent moon
To light the view
But I don't whisper the words
When the moment arose
I wonder how he knows
You say your tongue is tied
Your words escape and hide
But he's so patient and kind
He's prepared to read your mind
That's very well till you find
Because of the wine you drank
Your mind is still a blank

I wonder how he knows
I guess I will wonder until
I pluck up the courage to tell him
How I feel
So close I can feel his heart tremble
That look in his eyes as they close
I wonder how he knows

I wonder how he knows

With a handful of backhanders and a bevy of beauty
You're going off limits
Going off duty
Going off the rails
Going off with booty
They tell tales of fiction found on all the criminal types
Lead to a higher ranking man or a face with thin red stripes
Chorus:
The boys next door
The mums and dads
New weds and nearly-deads
Have you ever been had in Clubland?

There's a piece in someone's pocket to do the dirty work
You've come to shoot the pony
They've come to do the jerk
They leave him half way to paradise
They leave you half way to bliss
The ladies' invitation never seemed like this

Chorus

The long arm of the law slides up the outskirts of town
Meanwhile in Clubland they are ready to pull them down
Hey

The right to work is traded in for the right to refuse admission
Don't pass out now, there's no refund
(when) Did you find out what you were missing
The crowd is taking forty winks minus ten percent
You barely get required sleep to go lingering with contemptment
Thursday to Saturday
Money's gone already
Some things come in common these days
Your hands and work aren't steady

Chorus

Almost blue
Almost doing things we used to do
There's a girl here and she's almost you
Almost
All the things that your eyes once promised
I see in hers too
Now your eyes are red from crying

Almost blue
Flirting with this disaster became me
It named me as the fool who only aimed to be
Almost blue
It's almost touching
It will almost do
There is part of me that's always true
Always
Not all good things come to an end
Now it is only a chosen few
I have seen such an unhappy couple

Almost me
Almost you
Almost blue

Speak darkly, my angel
Or do I have to plead?
The sweetness has gone out of it
And all that's left is bitter barren greed

A needy lover with her almost vanished liar
Entangled as the gloom is strangled by the clinging briar
That ventures out to gather in the gloom

That perfect mouth is ruined now
For as you turn down the corners of your smile
And cloud your dim corrupted eyes
Just before the concertina wrecks your noble brow
The fatal flaw I can't allow

Depart now, my angel
The gaoler of my youth
Sends fifty thousand reasons why I never ever try to tell the truth
The season's over
And it's time for either one of us to go
Stand by the window
But don't lean so temptingly into the drop that calls below
For if you tumble back
I look so good in black

Here she comes with her almost ideal eyes
and her flawless skin and her petulant pout
The memory of such a long blond alibi
still makes me want to shout out loud
You ************ when you clear your head my dear
you can't come out here in those stolen clothes
Telling me all about some mystery
I hope she isn't one, I hope she isn't one of those

Almost ideal eyes
Viewed through a rosey hue
so beautiful, trusting
You find liberal is an insult now and care is what you pay for
Be sure of what you're wishing for, be careful what you pray for
When you look into those almost ideal

Love is smiles, he will hypnotize you wild
He tries to analyze your dreams
Fill you up with all his big ideas while he really wants to make you
Scream out loud at the phony innocence
and pained pretence and the dismal rage.
LyricsThe vacant lot that thankfully time forgot
Where you never have to act, you never have to act your age

Almost ideal eyes
Viewed through a rosey hue
so beautiful, trusting
you find stupid is a compliment and thrill is what you play for
Be sure of what you're wishing for, be careful what you pray for
When you look into those almost ideal eyes

In the spirit(?) all your friends look uglier
and you find you're wearing an evening gown
Weeping over some tiny broken bird
while the sky is decorated
shocking pink and a dirty shade of brown
and you think you need to be tranquilized
a feat that may fit to your new career
Whatever you invent you'll never be content with

Almost ideal eyes
Viewed through a rosey hue
so beautiful, trusting
rebellion is just currency, the moon is what you pay for
be sure of what you're looking for, be careful what you pray for
when you look into those almost ideal eyes

Here she comes, here she comes now.....

Can you be true?
Can this possibly be real?
I knew quite suddenly
Do you sense how I feel?
I long to hear you whisper my name
'Til you tell me
"My Darling, you may be my man."

There will be days when you must go from my sight
There may be nights when clouds deny us starlight
Only time will tell us
I hope that it speaks gently if it isn't meant to be
Then again
By then we might not be listening so attentively

I will be there
If the days bring torments and trials
To close the distances only measured in miles
I long to hold you all through the night
And to tell you
"My Darling, you make everything seem right"
And then I'll hear you calling in my name
And I'll answer
"My Darling, I may be your man"

Put away forbidden playthings
Amusements and distractions
And dismantle the contraption and carry it away

In time as beauty dissolves into glamour
It slips from your heart and falls under the hammer.
Put away forbidden playthings...

And never return to pluck out that jewel
Or find the thrill that slumbers still
While suffering the dream of disobeying.
Put away forbidden playthings...

I spy through the "Spirit of Curiosity"
All the scandals of each vain monstrosity
I gossip and I pry and I insinuate
If the failure is great
Then it tends to fascinate

A tornado dropped a funnel cloud with twenty tons of rain
Though she had the attention span of warm cellophane
Her lovers fell like skittles in an 10-pin bowling lane
But nothing could compare with that explosion of fame

So you jump back with alarm
Every Elvis has his Army
Every rattlesnake its charm
Can you still hear me?
Am I coming through just fine?
Your memory was buried in simple box of pine

Did her green eyes seduce you and make you get so weak?
Was there fire engine red that she left upon your cheek?
It's such a shame you had to break the heart
You could have counted on but the last thing you need is another
...Episode of blonde

Revolving like a jeweller's figure on a music box
Spangled curtain parted and a night club scene unlocks
Pinned and fixed and fastened in a follow spot
Arms thrown out to everyone, she's giving all she's got
To the last gasp of a wounded bandeon
Tiny man imploring to the ceiling fan
This stolen feeling
Amplified up through the busted speaker
Blaring, blasting, advertising, distorted beyond reason
Into the street where petty crime coats shadow panic drunkards,
Half out of the taxi cab the barker seized my elbow
He thought I was another lonely, likely pilgrim looking for St. Telmo

Repeat chorus

I tried to keep a straight face but you know it never pays
He would stare into those eyes and then vacation in her gaze
She was a cute little ruin that he pulled out of the rubble
Now they're both living in a soft soap bubble

The film producer's contemplating, entertaining suicide
The picture crumpled in his fist, his runaway child bride
The timepiece stretched across his wrist
She couldn't care less cast aside
The scent that so repelled him that he swore: "insecticide"
And there's farewell note to mother
That will conclude "Your loving Son"
"Oh, tell your other children not to do as I have done"

Chorus

So an artist drags a toothbrush across the first thing that he sees
And names the painting "Christ's Last Exit into Purgatory"
Receiving secret messages from an alien intelligence
Paying off his stalker it's a legitimate expense
So paste up pictures of those shrill and hollow girls
With puckered lips
She's a trophy on your arm
A magnet for your money clip
The moral of this story is the sorry tale to say
They're pieced with links of chains so they can never run away

As the last light glimmers
And the evening hours dim
Maybe I'm too proud to utter it out loud
Even though my flame burns blue

As the night's descending
Once again I find I'll tarry and pretend
My confidential friend
Will suddenly appear in view

All my might
Between velvet and dynamite
Blow out the doors
Let in the light
Falling dust in the beam
And a small stifled scream

Alibis and decoys
Were his eyes so turquoise?
Covered with a lash
They flatter and they flash
LyricsEven though my flame burns blue

If I seem a stranger
I feel far from danger
We tamper and we toy
With passion over joy
Even though my flame burns blue

Even though the fire that once was desire
Doesn't look for trouble or dare to flare
Look now
And I won't be there

nice girls, not one with a defect
cellophane shrink-wrapped so correct
red dogs under illegal legs
she looks so good that he gets down and begs

she is watching the detectives
"oooh it's so cute!"
she is watching the detectvies
when they shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot

they beat him up until the teardrops start
but he can't be wounded 'cos he's got no heart

long shot of that jumping sign
invisible shivers running down my spine
cut to baby taking off her clothes
close up of the sign that says 'we never close'

you snatch a chill, you match a cigarette
she pulls your eyes out with a face like a magnet
i don't know how much more of this i can take
she's filing her nails while they're dragging the lake

she is watching the detectives
"oooh it's so cute!"
she is watching the detectives
when they shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot

they beat him up until the teardrops start
but he can't be wounded 'cos he's got no heart

you think you're alone until you realise you're in it
now baby's here to stay, love is here for a visit
they call it instant justice when it's past the legal limit
someone's scratching at the window: i wonder who is it?
the detectives come to check if you belong to the parents
who are ready to hear the worst about their daughter's disappearance
though it nearly took a miracle to get you to stay
it only took my little finger to blow you away

just like watching the detectives
don't get cute
it's just like watching the detectives
i get so angry when the teardrops start
but he can't be wounded cos he's got no heart

watching the detectives
it's just like watching the detectives
(fade)

Now I have nothing
So God give me strength
'Cos I'm weak in her wake
And if I'm strong I might still break
And I don't have anything to share
That I won't throw away into the air
That song is sung out
This bell is rung out
She was the light that I'd bless
She took my last chance of happiness
So God give me strength
God give me strength

I can't hold on to
God give me strength
When the phone doesn't ring
And I'm lost in imagining
Everything that kind of love is worth
As I tumble back down to the earth

That song is sung out
This bell is rung out
She was the light that I'd bless
She took my last chance of happiness
So God give me strength

God if she'd grant me her indulgence and decline
I might as well
Wipe her from my memory
Fracture the spell
As she becomes my enemy

Maybe I was washed out
Like a lip-print on his shirt
See, I'm only human
I want him to hurt
I want him
I want him to hurt

Since I lost the power to pretend
That there could ever be a happy ending
That song is sung out
This bell is rung out
She was the light that I'd bless
She took my last chance of happiness
So God give me strength
God give me strength