Lyrics Elvis Costello – Church Underground

She stood spotlit in a plain print dress
Came howling out of the wilderness
There beat a cunning and murderous heart
Beneath that calm exterior

«You know my name
You don’t know my mind
Don’t doubt my eyes
They betray the past
And I’ve already forgotten
Much more than you will ever know»

And every word that I have spoken is true
Except for those that were broken in two

I’m trying to make peace after a long night of pretend
I need a pawnbroker or moneylender

Why do you do me down, Mister?
Sing «Hallelujah,» Sister
Turn up the volume, just to turn it down
The trivial secrets buried with profound
It’s enough to put a Church Underground

Deflowered young and then ever since
She’s tried to wash off his fingerprints
So every charlatan and prince
Was made to feel inferior

She worked for tips in a 10-cent dance
Said moving pictures might pay perchance
10,000 one-way tickets to the sparkling coast
From the blank interior

Everybody’s either talking in code
Or getting ready to explode

Then she was singing with five-piece band

Why do you do me down, Mister?
Sing «Hallelujah,» Sister
Turn up the volume, just to turn it down
The trivial secrets buried with profound
It’s enough to put a Church Underground

The shaft of fanlight streaked with rain
Poured through the glass, punched through the pain
A holy picture hidden in the midden of that poisoned stitch
Her lonely voice was just a ruin in these riches

Must have been dreaming this all along
Could she be redeeming herself in song?
«I’m no-one’s martyred, plaster saint
Below the grease, beneath the paint»

I’m rolling like barrel
Swinging like a gallows
I’m rising up fast like all hell and all hallows

Why do you do me down, Mister?
Sing «Hallelujah,» Sister
I’ll be damned or purgatory bound
Before those jokers ever understand
It’s enough to put a Church Underground