Getting Sardonic With Elvis (Vol 3)

For Parts 1 & 2.

So there he was on a water bed
Drinking a cola of a mystery brand
Reading an airport novelette
Listening to Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Requiem"

He said before it had really begun
"I prefer the one about my son
I've been wading through all of this unbelievable junk
And wondering if I should have given the world to the monkeys"

God's Comic   

So you bay for the boy in the tiger skin trunks
They set him up, set him up on the stool
He falls down, he falls down like a drunk
And you drink till you drool
And it's his story you'll flatter
You'll stretch him out like a saint
But the canvas that he splattered
Will be the picture that you never paint

Deep Dark Truthful Mirror

Ever since you left I have been trying to
Compose a "baby, will you please come home?" note, meant for you
As I clear away another untouched TV dinner
From the table I laid for two

My Brave Face (composed with Paul McCartney)

Here lie the records that she scratched
And on the sleeve I find a note attached
And it's so like Candy
"My Darling Dear it's such a waste"
She couldn't say "goodbye, but I admire your taste"
And it's so like Candy

So Like Candy (composed with Paul McCartney)

She was smitten from the first
By a curious fellow
She said "I love the way you talk"
And with her flounce she announces
"I love the way that you pronounce it - marshmallow"

Well he looked like one of those
Who would take off his clothes
Like he would peel a tangerine
No one's been known to decline this
Once he has found out what your sign is

My Mood Swings

Oh, if I could just become forgetful
When night seems endless
Does the extinguished candle care
About the darkness?

This House Is Empty Now (composed with Burt Bacharach)

Maybe I was washed out
Like a lip-print on his shirt 

Since I lost the power to pretend
That there could ever be a happy ending
That song is sung out

This bell is rung out

God Give Me Strength (composed with Burt Bacharach)

And so this had to be
Painted from memory
Funny, now I can see
How looks can be deceiving

Painted From Memory (composed with Burt Bacharach)

And it's the same every year
Seems that I remember it as something more
But you know how children can grow, so strange
I still adore you

What if we never learn from our mistakes?
But then, you'll never know how my heart aches 

Tears At the Birthday Party (composed with Burt Bacharach)

And you're such a people person
Alibi, alibi
And I will be true to you forever
Alibi, alibi
But you're stupid and you're lazy
Alibi, alibi
Maybe we can make the future better
Alibi, alibi

You don't fit the body that you're trapped in
Alibi, alibi
Papa's got a brand new
Alibi, alibi


But if I've done something wrong there's no "ifs and buts"
'Cos I love you just as much as I hate your guts

Alibi

Bells are chiming for victory
There's a page back in history
45
They came back to the world that they fought for
Didn't turn out just like they thought
45

Nine years later a child is born
There's a record, so you put it on
45
Nine years more, if we're lucky now
Nine-year-old puts his money down
45
Every scratch, every click, every heartbeat
Every breath that I held for you
45
There's a stack of shellac and vinyl
Which is yours now and which is mine?
45

Bass and treble heal every hurt
There's a rebel in a nylon shirt
But the words are a mystery, I've heard
'Til you turn it down to 33 and a 1/3

45 

If only dust could gather into lines of chalk
Around a silhouette detective fiction walks
For it's the only witness that can testify
Can I spit out the truth?
Or would you rather just swallow a lie?

Dust

One wine-bar vamp with the polythene face
Ein Panzer Kommander with no hair in place
The crooked battalions drilled holes in the square

15 Petals

"Abel was able," so Vivian said
Her shoulders flung forward
Her lips in a purse
She talks like the beauty that she never was
Of the fabulous wild nights that she never has

In a certain light he looked like Elvis
In a certain way he feels like Jesus
Everyone dreams of him just as they can
But he's only the humble Delivery Man

Geraldine blushes and brushes away
The cigarette ashes that Vivian scatters
Stares out of the window at the things that she says
While gossip within her competes the widow

Ever since he's gone, she feels like crying all the time
She knows for sure, Vivian is lying
Now she has a daughter to raise as she can
And she just wouldn't trust that Delivery Man

Ivy puts down the ghost story she's reading
Looks up at that face on the wall
Thinking about how her father lay bleeding
Shot in the back 'cos orders were misleading
And how a flag and a medal don't have any meaning

On the 5th of July as they tore down the fair
And he'd seen all the local girls who were worth kissing
With the smell of the gunpowder still in air
They noticed that Abel and Ivy were missing

In a certain light he looked like Elvis
In a certain way he seemed like Jesus
He said "Why can't you be kind to me like you were meant to be?
When they let me out, I had a brand new identity
Now everyone dreams of me just as they can
I want to be your Delivery Man"

In a certain light he looked like Elvis
In a certain way he seemed like Jesus
In a certain light he looked like Elvis
In a certain way he felt like Jesus

The Delivery Man 

Is this is not a pretty tale?
Is this not a riddle?
A bow shoots arrows through the air
A bow drags notes from a fiddle
But who is the beau of young girl's heart?

How Deep Is The Red?

Now if you catch my eye and you find that it runs down your leg
It's like striking a match pretty hard upon a powder keg
They tell you from the borders to the waters of the gulf
If you take all the sugar you will end up in the sulphur

The women in Poughkeepsie
Take their clothes off when they're tipsy
But in Albany, New York
They love the filthy way I talk
Until they gargle with the finest champagne
They can't get the grape and the grain
It's not very far from Sulphur to Sugarcane

Up in Syracuse
I was falsely accused
But I'm not here to hurt you
I'm here to steal your virtue
Down in Bridgeport
The women will kill you for sport
But in Worcester, Massachusetts
They love my sauce

The women in Poughkeepsie
Take their clothes off when they're tipsy
But I hear in Ypsilanti
They don't wear any panties
Once they gargle with the finest champagne
They hitch up their skirts and exclaim
It's not very far, sugar
It's not very far, sugar
Pour a little sugar on me, sugar
It's not very far from Sulphur to Sugarcane

Sulphur To Sugarcane