Elvis Costello - All These Strangers Lyrics
"Mistreat me darling and I might just disappear"Upon freighter running dark out of AlgiersPut tiny grains in children's tearsWhile taking 25% of all the flashbulbs and mementoesFrom the mechanized divisions rolling over your frontiersI saw my baby talking with another man to daySpeaking softly in a confidential wayI saw a shadow pull his glove offAs a bluebird flew overLife's is no pleasureWhen you doubt the one you loveWho Are All These Strangers?I never will go back againGo back into the pastFor the flood is rising fastYou can break your window and look downInto a muddy glassIt's mirror or lens to burn...There was a deal done in Benghazi and Belgrade...Upon a scimitar or other crooked bladeRansacks and loots, vacated suitsAnd pistol points but never shoots, army sitting in a locomotive yard without their bootsUpstairs your man is painting the rain out in the streetImagines woman that he's destined still to meetHe's trying sidetrack one to count onCaught somewhere between countess or a courtesanAnd it's only love to feign and then it's goneWho Are All These Strangers?He's a privateer as dusk gets nearA brigand after dark, his victim lined with chalkA corsair, filled with horsehair to the coreDashed on your eyes of Adamantine, you despised his stripling whineThat little smudger and the mouthpiece that he's withUsing his clause just like a practised fingersmithI dreamed I took his digit printsAnd then sewed then on a villain's handsWatched him ransom and demandUntil called the flatfoots inI never will go back againGo back into the pastFor the flood is rising fastYou can break your window and look downInto a muddy glassIt's a mirror or lens to burn...Who Are All These Strangers?All These StrangersI sat down on a narrow bedI thought about the things she saidAll These StrangersHow I wished the night would never endSo tried to stop the days aheadI'd carve her name down in the woodSome small remembrance if I could
