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ELVIS COSTELLO lyrics : "Bedlam"

I've got this phosphorescent portrait of gentle Jesus meek and
mild
I've got this harlot that I'm stuck with carrying another man's

child
The solitary star announcing vacancy burnt out as we arrived
They'd throw us back across the border if they knew that we

survived
And they were surprised to see us
So they greeted us with palms

They asked for ammunition, acts of contrition and small alms

I might recite a small prayer

If I ever said them
I lay down on an iron frame
Found myself in bedlam

I wish that I could take something for drowning out the noise
Wailing echoes down the corridors


I've got this imaginary radio, and I'm punching up the dial
I've got the A.C. trained on the T.V. so it won't blow up in my
eye

And everything that I thought fanciful and mocked as too
extreme
Must be family entertainment here in the strange land of my

dreams
Now I'm practicing my likeness of St. Francis of $$#isi
For if I hold my hand outstretched

A little bird comes to me

I might recite a small prayer

If I ever said them
I lay down on an iron frame
Found myself in bedlam

Escaping from the fingers that were stretching through the
bars
Wailing echoes down the corridors


The player piano picks out "Life Goes On"
Ring tone rang out "Jerusalem"

And in this pit of sadness
Where the rank of wretched plunge
We've buried all the innocents

Now we must bury revenge

They've got this scared and decorated girl strapped to the steel

trunk of a mustang
And then they drove her down a cypress grove where traitors hang
and stars still spangle

They dangled flags and other rags along a coloured thread of
twine
And then they dragged that bruised and purple heart along the

road to Palestine

Someone went off muttering, he mentioned thirty pieces

Easter saw a slaughtering, each wrapped in bloodstained
fleeces


Then my thoughts returned to vengeance, but I put up no
resistance
Though I seemed a long way from my home

It really was no distance

And I might recite a small prayer

If I ever said them
I lay down on an iron frame
Found myself in bedlam

Bowing like an actor acknowledging applause
Playing the Crusader who was conquering the Moors
And he knew the consequences, but he won't accept the cause

Wailing echoes down the corridors

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