Last Of The Window Cleaners Lyrics - Momus

I was the last of the window-cleaners 

I was sacrificed as such 

When they singled out the ring-leaders 

They said I'd seen too much 

But I only saw what the butler did 

The chambermaid also 

I only saw how the other half lived 

I just washed their windows 

Maybe up my ladder I got ideas above my station 

Seldom if ever had a working man had a higher education 

I learned to value clarity 

And that knowledge is a two-way thing 

That when windows attain transparency 

working men get a good look in 

But times are bad for window-cleaners 

Worse than the 1930s 

If it's not cowboys and amateurs 

Who don't know where the dirt is 

It's our most powerful customers 

Who'll wipe us out eventually 

They've lost the taste for clarity 

In the late 20th century 

The rich stopped wanting to see the world 

They'd made it such a mess 

They covered their windows with mother-of-pearl 

To deflect the ugliness 

It was then that the witch-hunt started 

Charity fell out of fashion 

It was whispered that the rich regarded 

Our job with suspicion 

They took away our permits 

And imposed a window tax 

People became like hermits 

Sitting in their pitch black flats 

And though we remained intransigent 

And our pride in the work lived on 

There was a series of mysterious accidents 

And we died off one by one 

And times are bad for window-cleaners 

Worse than the 1930s 

If it's not cowboys and amateurs 

Who don't know where the dirt is 

It's our most powerful customers 

Who'll wipe us out eventually 

They've lost the taste for clarity 

In the late 20th century 

I was the last of the window-cleaners 

After the union was smashed 

They found the corpses of the other ring leaders 

Their fingers had been crushed 

I received anonymous letters threatening attack 

They struck at the Limehouse dock 

Up drew a horse-drawn hackney cab 

It was well past twelve o'clock 

Out came a man with a lantern 

Saying he'd come to light me to bed 

Saying something to do with a chopper 

And something to do with my head 

But I wasn't listening carefully 

I had other things on my mind 

The failure of the union 

The future of mankind 

He spread his frock coat flat on the quay 

And began positioning me there 

Laid me back almost tenderly 

And flourished a butcher's cleaver 

I shouted past him into the dark 

"We're prepared to make concessions" 

But the blade he twisted in my heart 

Ended my profession 

But times are bad for window-cleaners 

Worse than the 1930s 

If it's not cowboys and amateurs 

Who don't know where the dirt is 

It's our most powerful customers 

Who wiped us out eventually 

They've lost the taste for clarity 

In the late 20th century 

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