Elvis Costello - Bedlam 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 Assisi

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