Radio Is Everything

I'm sitting here wondering if this matchbox will hold my dreams The redhead in my arms go up in flames? Or dissolve mighty regimes with her screams, ha, or so it seems She dragged my face from the eye to my lip on the rough side of the striking strip To the port side of a sinking ship Staring in a compact mirror A siren calling from another era While you made faces and then blew kisses Drowned in a pool that hypnotized Narcissus They say I have a perfect face for radio And a trumpet for listening A cheek to turn to you An eye for glistening Tear that tear from me Hold it in your memory Pull away the powder and the pain painted dream Of this and that disgrace A silver band of marching soles A button of brass an epaulet of gold That lenten light, that slight fanfare that consoles That trivial, snivelling rosary, that ring-a-ding rosemary Condemned a man, alas, at last, at requiem mass I sound much better than I look Like a hero in a book Now there is too much at stake But perhaps you mistook my mistake For the tip in the print, you dusted for From the hand, you forgot to shake Tumbledown Dick said to King Oliver "I don't shrink down at the thought of you Give the people back their ringlet Prince just like you ought to do Journey far from here like Gulliver To lands at the edge of everywhere That we have still to discover Where there's a sole of a jackboot in a broken brace Poised above a human face forever and ever" You don't need to see my face Radio is everything You don't need to know my name Radio is everything The lie that I tell It just doesn't matter If I should deceive you Or if I should flatter If your bankroll gets thin while some kitty gets fatter Radio is everything From the straight to the narrow to the broadcast from within Radio is everything Radio is everything --- Radio Is Everything - Elvis Costello