Elvis Costello - Fake Tin Star Lyrics
Things these days are better by far,A horse can out run a motor car,If the wheels are rubber and the rails are steelThat beast can outrun any automobileHere's the story of progress and all the bullets they spentOn a sheet hung up in a circus tentThere's a lantern shining - it's pointing the wayThis kind man has probably had his dayBut they keep him around with his last vain hopeFor selling tickets while spinning a rope.They brought him down off the vanishing trailBut nobody these days wants to hear his taleSo he spends his nights leaning up at the barThe real gone cowboy with the fake tin star.Up on the screen there's a boy half his ageThey pay him 20 times his weekly wageFor dodging phony bullets and catching blunt bladesFor blowing up horses and kissing young maids.Children cheerWomen throw flowersMen just glowerUp at the screenBut they don't knowJust what it meansVengeance and dreams.Girls just swoon at the mention of himWith his face all powdered and his immaculate brimAnd his hair pommaded and his fingernails cleanWhile old men whisper "Just look at him preen"And outside muttering through a cheap cigarThere's a real gone cowboy with a fake tin star.