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