Coal-Train Robberies

Yesterday's coal train came to rest in the bitter cutting And as the signals took an age to change it was easy pickings So you go to the movies where they smash it up You want to feel your heart pumping it makes you feel good All through the karaoke girls were squealing the hits As another Mercedes-Benz gets blown to bits While all the time in the Camptown Theatres of Piccadilly They're going to throw a black-face minstrel show for the barefoot children That they're always selling They'll say "It's quaint" as the guilty ones faint And claim they ain't underneath this paint We interrupt these liberal saints with their whips and watermelon Reports are coming in of a coal-train robbery It's like another world, or it had better be So we return to whitewashed pout of his committed lips Since he was declared the long lost fountain of youth That drips and drips and drips They'll be sending him round from door to door, To sell you back what's already yours "So many good deeds, so little time" Say the advertising agency swine When man has destroyed what he thinks he owns I hope no living thing cries over his bones If you don't believe that I'm going for good You can count the days I'm gone and chop up the chairs for firewood Reports are coming in of a coal-train robbery It's like another world, or it had better be --- Coal-Train Robberies - Elvis Costello