God’s comic

Elvis Costello

I wish you’d known me when I was alive, I was a funny fella
The crowd would hoot and holler for more
I wore a drunk’s red nose for applause
Oh yes, I was a comical priest
“With a joke for the flock and a hand up your fleece”
Drooling the drink and the lipstick and greasepaint
Down the cardboard front of my dirty dog-collar

Now I’m dead, now I’m dead, now I’m dead, now I’m dead
And I’m going on to meet my reward
I was scared, I was scared, I was scared, I was scared
He might of never heard God’s comic

So there he was on a waterbed, drinking a cola of a mystery brand
Reading an airport novelette, listening to Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s “Requiem”
He said, before it had really begun, “I prefer the one about my son”
“I’ve been wading through all this unbelievable junk
And wondering if I should have given the world to the monkeys”

I’m going to take a little trip down
Paradise’s endless shores
They say that travel broadens the mind, till you can’t get your head out of doors

I’m sitting here on the top of the world
I hang around in the longest night
Until each beast has gone bed and then I say “God bless” and put out the light

While you lie in the dark, afraid to breathe
And you beg and you promise and you bargain and you plead
Sometimes you confuse me with Santa Claus
It’s the big white beard I suppose
I’m going up to the Pole, where you folks die of cold
I might be gone for a while if you need me

Now I’m dead, now I’m dead, now I’m dead, now I’m dead
And you’re all going on to meet your reward
Are you scared? Are you scared? Are you scared? Are you scared?
You might have never heard, but God’s comic

Fonte: encarte que acompanha o álbum Spike (1989), de Elvis Costello.