National Ransom

Album: National Ransom (2010)
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  • Running pell-mell and harum-scarum
    Running as hot as they do or dare
    Stick out your tongue
    And drink down all the venom
    A cut-throat Cuthbert
    And Millicent St. Cyr
    From the real old Macau
    To the new false Americas
    In the liberated territories
    Unusual suspects shake down, shake down, shake down
    Various dubious characters

    Mother's in the kitchen picking bones for breakfast
    Boiling them down by the bushel and the score
    Pull out your thumb and count what's left on your fist
    There's a wolf at the window with ravening maw

    Did you find how to lie?
    Did you find out how to cheat?
    The elite bleat, their obsolete
    But are your prospects?
    Exact, perfect object
    Now, if you'd only genuflect

    They're running wild
    Just like some childish tantrum
    Meanwhile we're working every day
    Paying off the national ransom

    Woe betide all this hocus-pocus
    They're running us ragged at their first attempt
    Around the time the killing stopped on Wall St.
    You couldn't hold me, baby with anything but contempt

    Letters peel slowly from our speech
    The claxton attempts to preach
    Stretching for stars still out of reach
    Drowning
    Flailing
    Outside, someone's wailing

    They're running wild
    Just like some childish tantrum
    Meanwhile we're working every day
    Paying off the national ransom

    They're running wild
    Just like some childish tantrum
    Meanwhile we're working every day
    Paying off the national ransom Writer/s: ELVIS COSTELLO
    Publisher: BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

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