In the bright-lit railway station, 3 A.M.

in a town whose active life is at an end

I was met by a rich man dressed in a panda fur

who said, "If I can keep smiling I can change the world."

What world?



"Lord Straight Banana, Lord Paper Twine,

Lord Biting Yo-Yo, they're all friends of mine.

Lord Trannie Dolequeue, Lord Private Zoo,

Lord Hanging Bishop and Lord Valium, too."



"I know you think you have a job

but the whole world knows it's ended.

Why do you laugh at the dying of the senile god

on whom your devilish life depended?"



Shop-soiled and broken

in a part not clearly seen

You'll have no Armegeddon, no more screams

Pleasant dreams...



CHORUS:

Your world, your world, your world customer

Your world, your world, your world, your world



I said, "I'm sure your faith in what you cannot see

has made your slumbers sounder but it won't work for me.

I am sick of fresh starts, of the promises I've heard

from my lips and others of a brighter world."



"Now I'm a punchdrunk sailor who cannot picture land,

an exhausted atom in a grain of sand.

They who can't be frozen like a teenage corpse

must be isolated and tied up in knots."



Fake chrome and a lick of paint

and a change of name announced

by some menswear dummy turned messenger

of a master whose name he cannot pronounce

You feast on bargain-basement dregs

Get your self-delusions off the well-worn peg

No new hierarchy, female or male

No Santa, Elvis or Holy Grail



Shop-soiled and clueless, too indebted to inspect

what both feeds and defets you--no respect

I'm beaten, but I still reject

this world, just like a sentence

Without crime or guilt or sin

so give the panda back his skin

and give the berries back their gin--CHORUS