Now there's a crank in every crowd
|
Sprinkling gunpowder
|
Seems that everything is about to blow
|
They lit the burning paper
|
With a waxen taper
|
Sitting up here on Viceroy's Row
|
|
And they're gathering flowers
|
In the crack of hours where all of the nightmares go
|
Watching the pipeline as it overflowed
|
Sitting pretty here on Viceroy's Row
|
|
He made a fortune out of barbed wire
|
In the last days of the Empire
|
Built a cast-iron curtain
|
Just to keep control
|
|
He was a tycoon, then a cheapskate
|
Went out looking for a keepsake
|
To tuck into his suitcase on Viceroy's Row
|
|
And they're gathering flowers
|
In the crack of hours where all of the nightmares go
|
Watching the pipeline as it overflowed
|
Sitting pretty here on Viceroy's Row
|
|
He had a satchel full of cash
|
And dishes full of ashes
|
He went from boom to bust
|
In the blinking of a lash
|
|
Heard the rat-a-tat of the late patrol
|
Shooting out the lights up on Viceroy's Row
|
|
And they're gathering flowers
|
In the crack of hours where all of the nightmares go
|
They're coming for him slowly
|
Now the war is over
|
Sitting up here on Viceroy's Row
|
|
The woman in a blindfold
|
She doesn't want her hand held
|
Walking through a minefield
|
Saying "How does this feel?"
|
Stepping on the quicksand
|
Going down slow
|
Hiding up here on Viceroy's Row
|
|
Nothing satisfies
|
The ruins of his blue eyes
|
Like blood stains on a diamond mine
|
And deep within you felt
|
Not one measure of his guilt
|
Staring in the dark up on Viceroy's Row
|
|
Yet her penitent lover
|
Took a ribbon of rubber
|
Tied her to the bed made of silken thread
|
|
But without an ounce of mercy
|
They denounced him with a curse
|
Hammering on the door upon Viceroy's Row
|
|
Now his little concubine in her cemetery drag
|
Her face all smeared with charcoal
|
Is leaving all her cares, so
|
Take 500 acres and see what you can sow
|
We came to overthrow those on Viceroy's Row
|
|
They're gathering flowers
|
In the crack of hours where all of the nightmares go
|
Watching the pipeline as it overflowed
|
Sitting up here on Viceroy's Row
|
|
-----------------
|
Viceroy's Row
|
| Elvis Costello |
