Elvis Costello - Red Cotton Lyrics
I'm cutting up her pure white dressThat I dyed redThat I dyed redI'm putting scraps in cheap tin locketsWhat time erases and memory mocksI'll send them over the ocean foamRight into those gentle European homesThe slave ship "Blessing" slipped from LiverpoolOver the waves the Royal Navy rulesTo go and plunder the Kingdom of BeninWhere certain history ends and shame beginsDahomey traders paid in powder and shotLine up their prisoners and they sell them in lotsThey packed them tight inside those coffin shipsAnd they took them to the brand new world ofAuction blocks and whipsI'm cutting up her pure white dressThat I dyed redThat I dyed redI'm putting scraps in cheap tin locketsWhat time erases and memory mocksI'll send them over the ocean foamRight into those gentle European homesWhite is the sheet on your fine linen bedThe blood stained red on each cotton threadThe merchants gather at St. George's HallTo unveil the kneeling slave who is carved upon the wallPicture the scene at the Old Salt House docksWhere they loaded the iron shackles and locksBetween a sandstone crocodile, a barrel and a baleYou will see the nameless faces they were offering for saleSo, I sing the praises of God's gloryAs a blue cetacean floats in the basementAn elephant on the second storeyAnd they queue all day to see himIn my American MuseumBut the Lord will judge us with fire and thunderAs man continues in all his blundersIt's only moneyIt's only numbersMaybe it is time to put aside these fictitious wondersBut man is feebleMan is punyAnd if it should divide the UnionThere is no man that should own anotherWhen he can't even recognise his sister and his brother