Elvis Costello
A Town Called Big Nothing (Really Big Nothing)
[Verse]
Big nothing
He stood in the road outside of town
With a broken clockwork toy in his hand
A graveyard for childish dreams in his palm
A broken lifeline
Big nothing
The mechanical amusement sputtered to life in his fist
As he clenched, it whirred and died again
It was a cowboy who drew his gun
But the pistol was welded to the holster
By age and careless children
So it struggled and strained
And it unwound its own spring
Big nothing
He didn't need tattoos to show where he'd been
And who he'd loved
It was the same thing that men had cried for
That women had dyed their hair for
The cellophane illusion of a starry sky
Stretched over an open sore
Big nothing
He thought about his lost daughter
The way her eyes would alight at the greedy circus barker's blackmail song
How he wanted to smash her skull in when she parroted back
"Tell mommy; tell poppy; you need this little dolly"
Big nothing [x2]
The smoky voice of the petaled girl woke him long enough
There was too much light in the room, so he unscrewed the bulb
She took him to bed like an adopted dog
Big nothing
She lit sickly incense, as he tried to tell himself
The resemblance were pure and coincidental
He unleashed his grip on the toy and all it meant to him
And it wound down forever
Big nothing
He woke up in a sweat, the next day
With her smile still painted on his mouth
He walked out of a town called Big Nothing
Big nothing [Repeat until fade]