Lyrics Rehearsing My Choir - The Fiery Furnaces

Rehearsing My Choir

The bishop
Would head down, head down to Dearborn station
To see what stars on the silver screen might be seen
Or broadway stage were all the rage
With his black leather autograph book
And his black leather pastoral pumps
And his pressed black robes
And his tidy black beard of which he was so proud
And his hat that stuck out in a crowd
But there he’d sit
At his table at the edgewater hotel
Wearing his ecclesiastical furs
And lunching with two giggly and none too healthy looking young men
And in his shirt pocket up close to his heart was his autographed picture of
Robert Mitchum
Which he no doubt used in an impure way
And I was at home rehearsing my choir
On Christmas day
In the afternoon
I got a call at home
The bishop was on the phone
Wanting the choir to go and sing
On some channel 44 thing
And I said «out of the question!
The rest of the day is for their families!»
And the bishop became furious
All that time singing western music
Christmas carols, backsliding
And no time to represent the diocese
But of course he was just upset because he wanted to be on the show
And he hated women
And I knew he was angry with me
But I couldn’t worry about it
I went about my business
Rehearsing my choir
Rehearsing my choir
(da da da da da da da)
Again!
(da da da da da da da)
Ugh, altos, out of tune!
(da da da da da da da)
That’s not good!
(da da da da da da da)
That sounds horrible
Next sunday was my late sister’s namesday
La la la
And the bishop was coming that day to our church to deliver a sermon
Which would give me quite a big surprise
«Decadence in the church!
Betrayal of our traditions!
Look up in the choir loft, for instance, the lady in red
Eva!
I ban her from receiving communion
And remove her as choir director!»
I couldn’t believe my ears
And the congregation couldn’t believe theirs
And my husband was furious when he was told, as he wasn’t there at the time
And letters were written and phone calls were placed
And the matter was taken up, and i was granted an audience
And i sat there nervous and frightened
When into the room
Stepped his eminence
The archbishop
They had a strange deliberating process at his initiative
As it was his prerogative alone
But the hierarch with the tallest hat and longest beard would stand in the
middle
And the prelates with shorter hats and beards radiated out
With the archbishop in front of them
And then they began to intone
And I was left on the other side of the door, alone
And when they came out, bishop Nikolaki was sent off to San Jose