Mighty Like A Rose

"i'm trouble" she said
Spread out on the floor of her father's house
Her promise was almost undone
Under her tongue, dissolving her responsibilities
To finally deny everyone with unflattering comparison

Chorus
All grown up
And you don't care anymore
And you hate all the people that you used to adore
And you despise all the rumors and lies of the life you led before

Did i hear you right?
You're feeling hounded and pushed around
You want to just lay down and die
If all of this life has been such a big disappointment to you
Why don't you stop blaming some guy
And go give the next one a try

Chorus

But look at yourself
You'll see you're still so young
You haven't earned the weariness
That sounds so jaded on your tongue

"i'm weak" she says
And blesses herself and gets into bed
Clutching the covers to her throat
"so punish me now and let me go back to the sham of my life"
"this night is the perfect antidote for all of the poison that
You wrote"

Chorus

Now that you set everybody free
What are you going to do about me?
Don't want to be treated like some poor grateful clown
I'd rather go back to the sweet underground
Where i can tell by the colour of my skin
And i know my neighbour 'cos he's the one, yes he's the one
Who always turns me in

A woman works the tunnel in the middle of the night
Picking up every lost object in sight
Handbags, toupees, lost legs and fingernails
The black market eats up all your failures
Her transistor offers no salvation or regrets
No pool, no pets, no cigarettes
Just non-stop disco tex and the sex-o-lettes

Chorus
There's no name, no name for the place or pain we'll cause you
Again and again
If you do not co-operate with the invasion hit parade

The liberation forces make movies of their own
Playing their doors records and pretending to be stoned
Drowning out a broadcast that wasn't authorised
Incidentally the revolution will be televised
With one head for business and another for good looks
Until they started arriving with their rubber aprons and their
Butcher's hooks

Chorus

They're hunting us down here with liberty's light
A handshaking double talking procession of the mighty
Pursued by a t.v. crew and coming after them
A limousine of singing stars and their brotherhood anthem
The former dictator was impeccably behaved
They're mopping up all the stubborn ones who just refuse to be saved

Chorus

Sweet pear, sweet pear
Those who say they love you would never dare
I'll watch out for you
I'll always be there
In the hour of distress you need not fear

In all the world there's only one true love
And finding it's hard enough
I bless whatever's in the sky above
For bringing you to me

But there's a void without your kiss
I wake on the precipice above the abyss
And though the touch of your lips these fears dismiss
Make no mistake there is an ache i have to live with

Was my grip too lose, my grip too strong
That made you want to run away
And now you're back where i pretend you belong
I wonder every night and day
How long

I swear this is my prayer
'til we're burned and scattered in the atmosphere
Or lost in the world across a crowded room
I am your stupid lover, your wretched groom

He selects the plainest face form a spiteful row of girls
Elegant insulted women, a flaw of cultured pearls
He drops a name or two, she fails to catch
At last he's met his match
Unspoiled and unaffected, he wants her so much

She puts up half-hearted resistance, like she was taught to do
She's heard some of those small town playboys but this is something new
His promise seems dangerous, she'd like to believe
He says "you'd better leave"
"you've only got yourself to blame, shame, or deceive"

The waiting lines are long
They never get too far
Everyone wearing that medal with pride
Harpies bizarre

I looked on but hesitated
I failed to interrupt
You're so hard to tell the truth to
So easy to corrupt
I'll memorize your face
Your tragic smile
The hurt look in your eyes
As you betrayed yourself to the part of him that dies

The waiting lines are long
They never get too far
They're shining up their shoes to kick a falling star
You think you should be somebody
But you don't know who you are
Everyone wearing that medal with pride
Harpies bizarre

I was hell-bent on destroying my powers of concentration
While you were living like a saint
And all the time the very one you trusted was washing off
Somebody else's paint

Now you've got yourself a brand new occupation
Every fleeting thought is a pearl
And beautiful people stampede to the doorway
Of the funniest fucker in the world

They're here to help you
Satisfy your desire
There's a bright future for all you professional liars

Chorus
Now you know how to be dumb
Are you ready to take your place in the modern museum of mistakes?
Don't you know how to be dumb?
Like a building thrown up overnight in one of those reverse earthquakes

They emptied out all the asylums, they emptied out all the gaols
The "new bruise" was the name of a dance craze
By "jesus cross and the cruel nails"
Followed up by "torturing little beaver"
With their contraption of barbed wire
Between the fear and the fever lies all the rejection they require
They'll be howling by midnight, they'll be drooling by dawn
Skulls shrunk down to the size of their brains
Heads shaven and shorn

Chorus

Trapped in the house of the perpetual sucker
Where bitterness always ends so pitifully
You always had to dress up your envy in some half-remembered
Philosophy

Now you're masquerading as pale powdered genius
Whose ever bad intention has been purged
You could've walked out any time you wanted but face it you
Didn't have the courage
I guess that makes you a full time hypocrite or some kind of
Twisted dilettante
Funny though people don't usually get so ugly 'til they think
They know what they want
Scratch your own head stupid
Count up to three
Roll over on your back
Repeat after me

Don't you know how to be dumb?
Are you ready to take your place in the modern museum of mistakes?
Don't you know how to be dumb?
Like a building thrown up overnight in one of those reverse earthquakes

Georgie grew to hate her name
It sounded like a tiny man
And the one she had said "i can't see you, but i'll call you whenever i can"
Sometimes the phone would ring, when she was half-asleep
A voice would drag her down with its suggestions
Though she often felt cheated, she never felt cheap

Chorus
Well heaven knows what fills the heart and makes you feel so alive
It's impossible to tear apart
Georgie and her rival

It was half-past february
And he hadn't called since new year's day
Maybe he'd found another woman to say those words no chapel girl should say
Her mother would phone and always keep talking
She'd try to be polite, making faces
But somewhere in the back of her mind, her rival was stalking

Chorus

Her rival would always wait 'til the eighth or ninth bell
He'd be desperate anyway and drunk as well
She always liked to hurt him to prove he was prepared
To love her anyway that she wanted
So she could tell which she preferred

He sat up with his address book trying to think what mood he's in
His finger traced past georgie's name to someone who needed less persuading
He didn't hear through her disguise he didn't leave her in a rush
Just like the promise that he left on her machine
That almost made her blush
The radio plays a lover's symphony
"the number you have dialed has been re-directed"
Now she puts him on the speaker-phone
Whenever she has company

Chorus

I saw a girl who'd found her consolation
She said "one day my prince of peace will come"
Above her head a portrait of her father
The wilted favour that he gave her still fastened to the frame
"they've got his bones and everything he owns
I've got his name"

Well you can laugh at this sentimental story
But in time you'll have to make amends
The sudden chill where lovers doubt their immortality
As the clouds cover the sky the evening ends
Describing a picture of eyes finally closing
As you sometimes glimpse terrible faces in the fire
We'll i'm the lucky goon
Who composed this tune
From birds arranged on the high wire

Who on earth is tapping at the window?
Does that face still linger at the pane?
I saw you shiver though the room was like a furnace
A shadow of regret across a young mother's face
So toll the bell or rock the cradle
Please don't let me fear anything i cannot explain
I can't believe, i'll never believe in anything again