Elvis Costello - Miss Macbeth lyrics

All the children testified that Miss Macbeth

wore a fishbone slide in her cobweb tresses

Her eyes were black like first foot coal, clutched as white as chalk-dust

Her fingers sweated india-ink and poison-pen letters

There is a hungry hanging tree, just below your bedroom window

You can hear her take a broom to beat out a tattoo on the ceiling

Her bloodless face ran red inside but was she

really evil, was she only pantomime

Now the chalk on the wall says that somebody

saves, that somebody's face has just been washed off the pavement

Into a puzzle where petrol will be poisoned by rain

Miss Macbeth saw her reflection

As confetti bled it's colours down the drain

Chorus:

And everyday she lives out another love song

It's a tearful lament of somebody done wrong

Well how can you miss what you've never possessed?

Miss Macbeth

Well we all should have known when the children paraded

They portrayed her in their fairytales, sprinkling Deadly Nightshade

And as they tormented her she rose to the bait

Even a scapegoat must have someone to hate

And everyday she lives out another love song

"You're up there enjoying yourself, and I know it's wrong"

Well how can you miss what you've never possessed

Miss Macbeth

Sometimes people are just what they appear to be

With no redemption at all

We try to walk upright when we can't even crawl

Miss Macbeth has a gollywog she chucks under

the chin and she whispers to it tenderly Then sticks it on a pin

And It might be coincidence, but a boy down

the lane, that she said "went white as he could do," then doubled over in pain

Chorus