You Hung The Moon

Elvis Costello · National Ransom [2010]

The homecoming fanfare is echoing still

Now tapping on tables and sensing a chill

Poor families expecting a loved one's return

Only son and some charlatan specter, oh, when will they learn?



You hung the moon from a gallows in the sky

Choked out the light in his blue lunar eye

The shore is a parchment, the sea has no tide

Since he was taken from my side



The lines of the fallen are viewed through the glass

You cannot touch them at all

Or hear their footfall just as they go past

The drunken ground is where they are bound



You hung the moon from a gallows in the sky

Choked out the light in his blue lunar eye

The shore is a parchment, the sea has no tide

Since he was taken from my side



So slap out his terrors and sneer at his tears

We deal with deserters like this

From the breech to the barrel, the bead we will level

Break earth with a shovel, quick march on the double

And lower him shallow like tallow down in the abyss



You hung the moon from a gallows in the sky

Choked out the light in his blue lunar eye

The shore is a parchment, the sea has no tide

Since he was taken from my side

Since he was taken from my side



The homecoming fanfare is echoing still