Song information On this page you can find the lyrics of the song Bedlam, artist - Elvis Costello.
Date of issue: 03.07.2005
Song language: English
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 |