Elvis Costello - Wake Me Up Lyrics

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

Wake me up, wake me up, wake me up
Wake me up, wake me up
With a slap or a kiss
Wake me up, wake me up, wake me up
Wake me up, wake me up
There must be something better than this

I've got this imaginary radio, and I'm punching up the dial
I've got the ac. trained on the t. v
So it won't blow up in my eye
And everything that I thought fanciful or mocked
As too extreme
Must be family entertainment
Here in the strange land of my dreams
And I'm practising my likeness of st. francis of assisi
And if I hold my hand outstretched
A little bird comes to me

And I might recite a small prayer
If I ever said them
I lay down on an iron frame
And found myself in bedlam
Stepping on the fingers
That were stretching through the bars
Wailing echoes down the corridors

Wake me up, wake me up
Wake me up, wake me up, wake me up
With a slap or a kiss
Wake me up, wake me up, wake me up
Wake me up, wake me up
There must be something better than this

They've got this scared and decorated girl
Strapped to the steel trunk of a mustang
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
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

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

Wake me up, wake me up, wake me up
Wake me up, wake me up
With a slap or a kiss
Wake me up, wake me up, wake me up
Wake me up, wake me up
There must be something better than this

And the player piano picks out "life goes on"
The ringtone rang out "jerusalem"
Into the pit of sadness
Where the wretched plunge
We've buried all the innocents
We must bury revenge

Wake me up, wake me up, wake me up
Wake me up, wake me up
There must be something better than this
There must be something better than this
There must be something better than this

In the name of the father and the son
In the name of gasoline and a gun
Wake me up, wake me up, wake me up
Wake me up, wake me up