All these strangers
par Elvis Costello
lyricscopy.com
"Mistreat me darling and I might just disappear"
Upon freighter running dark out of Algiers
Put tiny grains in children´s tears
While taking 25% of all the flashbulbs and mementoes
From the mechanized divisions rolling over your frontiers
I saw my baby talking with another man to day
Speaking softly in a confidential way
I saw a shadow pull his glove off
As a bluebird flew over
Life´s is no pleasure
When you doubt the one you love
Who Are All These Strangers?
I never will go back again
Go back into the past
For the flood is rising fast
You can break your window and look down
Into a muddy glass
It´s mirror or lens to burn...
There was a deal done in Benghazi and Belgrade...
Upon a scimitar or other crooked blade
Ransacks and loots, vacated suits
And pistol points but never shoots, army sitting in a locomotive yard without their boots
Upstairs your man is painting the rain out in the street
Imagines woman that he´s destined still to meet
He´s trying sidetrack one to count on
Caught somewhere between countess or a courtesan
And it´s only love to feign and then it´s gone
Who Are All These Strangers?
He´s a privateer as dusk gets near
A brigand after dark, his victim lined with chalk
A corsair, filled with horsehair to the core
Dashed on your eyes of Adamantine, you despised his stripling whine
That little smudger and the mouthpiece that he´s with
Using his clause just like a practised fingersmith
I dreamed I took his digit prints
And then sewed then on a villain´s hands
Watched him ransom and demand
Until called the flatfoots in
I never will go back again
Go back into the past
For the flood is rising fast
You can break your window and look down
Into a muddy glass
It´s a mirror or lens to burn...
Who Are All These Strangers?
All These Strangers
I sat down on a narrow bed
I thought about the things she said
All These Strangers
How I wished the night would never end
So tried to stop the days ahead
I´d carve her name down in the wood
Some small remembrance if I could
Upon freighter running dark out of Algiers
Put tiny grains in children´s tears
While taking 25% of all the flashbulbs and mementoes
From the mechanized divisions rolling over your frontiers
I saw my baby talking with another man to day
Speaking softly in a confidential way
I saw a shadow pull his glove off
As a bluebird flew over
Life´s is no pleasure
When you doubt the one you love
Who Are All These Strangers?
I never will go back again
Go back into the past
For the flood is rising fast
You can break your window and look down
Into a muddy glass
It´s mirror or lens to burn...
There was a deal done in Benghazi and Belgrade...
Upon a scimitar or other crooked blade
Ransacks and loots, vacated suits
And pistol points but never shoots, army sitting in a locomotive yard without their boots
Upstairs your man is painting the rain out in the street
Imagines woman that he´s destined still to meet
He´s trying sidetrack one to count on
Caught somewhere between countess or a courtesan
And it´s only love to feign and then it´s gone
Who Are All These Strangers?
He´s a privateer as dusk gets near
A brigand after dark, his victim lined with chalk
A corsair, filled with horsehair to the core
Dashed on your eyes of Adamantine, you despised his stripling whine
That little smudger and the mouthpiece that he´s with
Using his clause just like a practised fingersmith
I dreamed I took his digit prints
And then sewed then on a villain´s hands
Watched him ransom and demand
Until called the flatfoots in
I never will go back again
Go back into the past
For the flood is rising fast
You can break your window and look down
Into a muddy glass
It´s a mirror or lens to burn...
Who Are All These Strangers?
All These Strangers
I sat down on a narrow bed
I thought about the things she said
All These Strangers
How I wished the night would never end
So tried to stop the days ahead
I´d carve her name down in the wood
Some small remembrance if I could