Interpret:

Elvis Costello

Album:

When I Was Cruel

I spy through the "Spirit of Curiosity"
All the scandals of each vain monstrosity
I gossip and I pry and I insinuate
If the failure is great
Then it tends to fascinate


A tornado dropped a funnel cloud with twenty tons of rain
Though she had the attention span of warm cellophane
Her lovers fell like skittles in an 10-pin bowling lane
But nothing could compare with that explosion of fame


So you jump back with alarm
Every Elvis has his Army
Every rattlesnake its charm
Can you still hear me?
Am I coming through just fine?
Your memory was buried in simple box of pine


Did her green eyes seduce you and make you get so weak?
Was there fire engine red that she left upon your cheek?
It's such a shame you had to break the heart
You could have counted on but the last thing you need is another
...Episode of blonde


Revolving like a jeweller's figure on a music box
Spangled curtain parted and a night club scene unlocks
Pinned and fixed and fastened in a follow spot
Arms thrown out to everyone, she's giving all she's got
To the last gasp of a wounded bandeon
Tiny man imploring to the ceiling fan
This stolen feeling
Amplified up through the busted speaker
Blaring, blasting, advertising, distorted beyond reason
Into the street where petty crime coats shadow panic drunkards,
Half out of the taxi cab the barker seized my elbow
He thought I was another lonely, likely pilgrim looking for St. Telmo


Repeat chorus


I tried to keep a straight face but you know it never pays
He would stare into those eyes and then vacation in her gaze
She was a cute little ruin that he pulled out of the rubble
Now they're both living in a soft soap bubble


The film producer's contemplating, entertaining suicide
The picture crumpled in his fist, his runaway child bride
The timepiece stretched across his wrist
She couldn't care less cast aside
The scent that so repelled him that he swore: "insecticide"
And there's farewell note to mother
That will conclude "Your loving Son"
"Oh, tell your other children not to do as I have done"


Chorus


So an artist drags a toothbrush across the first thing that he sees
And names the painting "Christ's Last Exit into Purgatory"
Receiving secret messages from an alien intelligence
Paying off his stalker it's a legitimate expense
So paste up pictures of those shrill and hollow girls
With puckered lips
She's a trophy on your arm
A magnet for your money clip
The moral of this story is the sorry tale to say
They're pieced with links of chains so they can never run away