144 :: Flagstone Streets :: A Slow Drag with "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror" - Slow Drag with Remedy :: An Elvis Costello Appreciation | Lyssna här

Today's slow drag is with "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror" from "Spike," released in 1989. The songwriting is credited to Elvis Costello's birth name.

Show Notes:

Appreciation written, produced, and narrated by Remedy Riot, MA, MFA

References:

"Deep Dark Truthful Mirror" Lyrics

One day you're going to have to face a deep dark truthful mirror

And it's going to tell you things that I still love you too much to say

The sky was just a purple bruise, the ground was iron

And you fell all around the town until you looked the same

(Chorus:)

The same eyes, the same lips

The same lie from your tongue trips

Deep dark, deep dark truthful mirror

Now the flagstone streets where the newspaper shouts

Ring to the boots of roustabouts

And you're never in any doubt, there's something happening somewhere

Well, you chase down the road 'til your fingers bleed on a fiberglass tumbleweed

You can blow around the town, but it all shuts down the same

(Repeat Chorus)

So, you bay for the boy in the tiger-skin trunks

They set him up, set him up on the stool

He falls down, he falls down like a drunk

And you drink till you drool

Well, it's his story you'll flatter

You'll stretch him out like a saint

But the canvas that he splattered

Will be the picture that you never paint

Deep dark, deep dark truthful mirror

A stripping puppet on a liquid stick gets into it pretty thick

A butterfly drinks a turtle's tears, but how do you know he really needs it?

'Cos a butterfly feeds on a dead monkey's hand

Jesus wept, he felt abandoned (shortest verse)

You're spellbound baby, there's no doubting that

Did you ever see a stare like a Persian cat?

(Repeat Chorus)

Deep dark, deep dark truthful mirror