Miss Macbeth lyrics

Song information

Artist: Elvis Costello
Album: Spike

Lyrics

All the children testified that miss macbeth
Wore a fishbone slide in her cobweb tresses
Her eyes were black like first foot coal, clutched as white as chalk-dust
Her fingers sweated india-ink and poison-pen letters
There is a hungry hanging tree, just below your bedroom window
You can hear her take a broom to beat out a tattoo on the ceiling
Her bloodless face ran red inside but was she
Really evil, was she only pantomime

Now the chalk on the wall says that somebody
Saves, that somebody's face has just been washed off the pavement
Into a puzzle where petrol will be poisoned by rain
Miss macbeth saw her reflection
As confetti bled it's colours down the drain

Chorus:

And everyday she lives out another love song
It's a tearful lament of somebody done wrong
Well how can you miss what you've never possessed?
Miss macbeth

Well we all should have known when the children paraded
They portrayed her in their fairytales, sprinkling deadly nightshade
And as they tormented her she rose to the bait
Even a scapegoat must have someone to hate

And everyday she lives out another love song
"You're up there enjoying yourself, and I know it's wrong"

Well how can you miss what you've never possessed
Miss macbeth

Sometimes people are just what they appear to be
With no redemption at all
We try to walk upright when we can't even crawl

Miss macbeth has a gollywog she chucks under
The chin and she whispers to it tenderly then sticks it on a pin
And it might be coincidence, but a boy down
The lane, that she said "went white as he could do," then doubled over in pain

Chorus