When you run,
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digger, runner, listener, thief,
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you carry it all with you.
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Today I woke up uncertain,
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and you know that gives me the fits,
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so I left this land of fungible convictions
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because it seemed like the pits.
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When I say, "conviction", I mean it's something to abjure
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and when I say "uncertain", I mean to doubt I'll not turn out a caricature.
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So I set off in search of my forebears,
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coz my forbearance was in need,
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but the only job I could get in dear old Blighty
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was working on the railway between Selby and Leeds.
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So I took a ferry to Belfast, where I had cause to think:
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They wanted none of my arm-chair convictions
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but nobody seemed to mind when I was putting on the drinks!
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And you didn't think they could hate you, now did you?
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You didn't think they could hate you, now did you?
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You didn't think they could hate you, now did you?
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Ah, but they hate you, and they hate you 'coz you're guilty! so...
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I stayed out all night in Ibiza,
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by way of San Sebastian,
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where they said;
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'Yanquee, you better watch what you're saying, unless you're sayin'
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it in Basque or in Catalan!"
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So all the way east to Novi Sad,
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where nary a bridge was to be seen,
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but Mother Russia, she laid her pontoons on down,
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so I crossed over, if you know what I mean...
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Then on the road to Damascus,
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yes, the scales, they fell from my eyes,
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and the simplest lesson I learned at the Mount of Olives was that everybody lies.
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And the French foreign legion
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you know they did their best -
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but I never believed in T.E. Lawrence,
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so how the hell could I believe in Beau Geste?
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You didn't think they could hate you, now did you?
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You didn't think they could hate you, now did you?
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You didn't think they could hate you, now did you?
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Ah, but they hate you, and they hate you 'coz you're guilty! So...
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I spent a night in Kigali, in a five diamond hotel,
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where maybe someday, they'll do the Watusi down in Hutu hell.
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I fell in with a merchant marine who promised to take me home,
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but when I woke up beaten and bloodied,
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I couldn't tell if it was Jersey or Sierra Leone!
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And you didn't think they could hate you, now did you?
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You didn't think they could hate you, now did you?
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You didn't think they could have you, now did you?
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Ah, but they hate you, and they hate you coz you're guilty...
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And the knocking in my head, just like the knocking at my door.
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Maybe it was me or maybe it was my brother,
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but either me or me and him went down to the bar,
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where I got seven powers in me for to give me the cure,
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but when seven powers failed to spin me,
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I had to get me seven more.
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And when I say, "me" I mean my brain.
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And when I say "give me the cure" I mean to kill the pain.
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And when I say "kill the pain" I meant to get the devil out.
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And when I say "devil" I mean the manifestation of doubt!
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And you didn't think they could hate you, now did you?
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You didn't think they could hate you, now did you?
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You didn't think they could hate you, now did you?
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Ah, but they hate you, make no mistake - they hate you...
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-----------------
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The Ballad Of The Sin Father
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| Ted Leo & The Pharmacists |
