How long does a promise last?
|
How long can a lie be told?
|
What would I take in exchange for my soul?
|
Would I notice when it was sold?
|
|
Wake me up
|
Wake me up
|
Wake me up with a slap or a kiss
|
There must be something better than this
|
'Cos I don't see how it can get much worse
|
What do we have to do to send
|
The river in reverse
|
|
Every man a crawling kingsnake
|
Every girl a half a heartbreak
|
Every woman sold into shame
|
To any son without a name
|
|
Are your arms too weak to lift?
|
Another shovel on the graveyard shift
|
Here comes the flood if you catch my drift
|
Where the things that they promised are not a gift
|
|
If man falls through the mirror of a lake
|
They fish him out quick and they call him a fake
|
Give him all the temptations he can take
|
Tie him up high 'til his bones break
|
|
Wake me up
|
Wake me up
|
Wake me up with a slap or a kiss
|
There must be something better than this
|
'Cos I don't see how it can get much worse
|
What do we have to do to send
|
The river in reverse
|
|
I thought I heard somebody laugh
|
Look out your window
|
They're chasing shadows in the dark
|
They're counting widows
|
|
I felt a sliver of glass
|
Saw a cross in splinters
|
I felt the truce of spring
|
Dig me out of the trench of winter
|
|
So count your blessings when they ask permission
|
To govern with money and superstition
|
They tell you it's all for your own protection
|
'Til you fear your own reflection
|
But the times are passing from illumination
|
Like bodies falling from a constellation
|
An uncivil war divides the nation
|
So erase the tape on that final ape running down creation
|
Running down creation
|
|
Wake me up
|
Wake me up
|
Wake me up with a slap or a kiss
|
There must be something better than this
|
Wake me up
|
Wake me up with a slap or a kiss
|
There must be something better than this
|
|
-----------------
|
The River In Reverse
|
| Elvis Costello |
