The Decemberists
"The Perfect Crime #2"


Sing news with passion of the pistol
Sing news of the warning by the whistle
On a night so dark in the waning
A dawn obscured by slight sky raining, oh oh

Five and twenty burglars by the reservoir
A teenage lookout on the signal tower
The moguls daughter in hard time
The mogul figures a one guy, one guys

It was a perfect, the perfect, the perfect, the perfect crime
It was a perfect, the perfect, the perfect, the perfect crime

The bagman's quaking at the fingers
The hand-off glance a little lingers
A well-dressed man in the crosshairs
A shot rings out from somewhere upstairs

It was a perfect, the perfect, the perfect, the perfect, the perfect, the
perfect crime
It was a perfect, the perfect, the perfect, the perfect, the perfect, the
perfect crime

It was the perfect crime

It was like a ticker-tape parade
When the last of the safe was blown away
And we all gaze from eye to eye
As we mouth our silent goodbyes

The valley's sleeping like a bastard
It stinks of slumber and disaster
Two words are spoken with tap wire
The agent's pull finds a surefire backfire

It was a perfect, the perfect, the perfect, the perfect, the perfect, the
perfect crime
It was a perfect, the perfect, the perfect, the perfect, the perfect, the
perfect crime