The Fatima Mansions
Your World Customer
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