Bedlam Lyrics - Delivery Man - Elvis Costello

Bedlam 

I've got this phosphorescent portrait of gentle Jesus meek and mild 

I've got this harlot that I'm stuck with carrying another man's child 

The solitary star announcing vacancy burnt out as we arrived 

They'd throw us back across the border if they knew that we survived 

And they were surprised to see us 

So they greeted us with palms 

They asked for ammunition, acts of contrition and small alms 

I might recite a small prayer 

If I ever said them 

I lay down on an iron frame 

Found myself in bedlam 

I wish that I could take something for drowning out the noise 

Wailing echoes down the corridors 

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I've got this imaginary radio, and I'm punching up the dial 

I've got the A.C. trained on the T.V. so it won't blow up in my eye 

And everything that I thought fanciful and mocked as too extreme 

Must be family entertainment here in the strange land of my dreams 

Now I'm practicing my likeness of St. Francis of Assisi 

For if I hold my hand outstretched 

A little bird comes to me 

I might recite a small prayer 

If I ever said them 

I lay down on an iron frame 

Found myself in bedlam 

Escaping from the fingers that were stretching through the bars 

Wailing echoes down the corridors 

The player piano picks out "Life Goes On" 

Ring tone rang out "Jerusalem" 

And in this pit of sadness 

Where the rank of wretched plunge 

We've buried all the innocents 

Now we must bury revenge 

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They've got this scared and decorated girl strapped 

to the steel trunk of a mustang 

And then they drove her down a cypress grove where 

traitors hang and stars still spangle 

They dangled flags and other rags along a coloured thread of twine 

And then they dragged that bruised and purple heart 

along the road to Palestine 

Someone went off muttering, he mentioned thirty pieces 

Easter saw a slaughtering, each wrapped in bloodstained fleeces 

Then my thoughts returned to vengeance, but I put up no resistance 

Though I seemed a long way from my home 

It really was no distance 

And I might recite a small prayer 

If I ever said them 

I lay down on an iron frame 

Found myself in bedlam 

Bowing like an actor acknowledging applause 

Playing the Crusader who was conquering the Moors 

And he knew the consequences, but he won't accept the cause 

Wailing echoes down the corridors