How To Be Dumb

Lyrics

I was hell-bent on destroying my powers of concentration

While you were living like a saint

And all the time the very one you trusted

Was washing off somebody else's paint

Now you've got yourself a brand new occupation

Every fleeting thought is a pearl

And beautiful people stampede to the doorway

Of the funniest fucker in the world

They're here to help you satisfy your desires

There's a bright future for all you professional liars

Chorus:

Now you know how to be dumb

Are you ready to take your place in the modern museum of mistakes?

Don't you know how to be dumb?

Like a building thrown up overnight in one of those reverse earthquakes

They emptied out all the asylums, they emptied out all the gaols

The "New Bruise" was the name of a dance craze

By "Jesus Cross and the Cruel Nails"

Followed up by "Torturing Little Beaver"

With their contraption of barbed wire

Between the fear and the fever lies all the rejection they require

They'll be howling by midnight, they'll be drooling by dawn

Skulls shrunk down to the size of their brains

Heads shaven and shorn

(Repeat Chorus)

Trapped in the House of the Perpetual Sucker

Where bitterness always ends so pitifully

You always had to dress up your envy in some half-remembered philosophy

Now you're masquerading as a pale powdered genius

Whose every bad intention has been purged

You could've walked out any time you wanted

But face it, you didn't have the courage

I guess that makes you a full time hypocrite

Or some kind of twisted dilettante

Funny though people don't usually get so ugly

Till they think they know what they want

Scratch your own head, stupid

Count up to three

Roll over on your back

Repeat after me:

Don't you know how to be dumb?

Are you ready to take your place in the modern museum of mistakes?

Don't you know how to be dumb?

Like a building thrown up overnight in one of those reverse earthquakes

Credits

• Written by: D.P.A. MacManus
• Produced by: Mitchell Froom, Kevin Killen and D.P.A. MacManus
• Musicians:

Elvis Costello - vocals, big stupid guitar and maracas

Pete Thomas - drums and maracas

Jerry Scheff - bass

Roger Lewis - baritone saxophone

Marc Ribot - electric rhythm guitar

Larry Knechtel - grand piano and Hammond B-3 organ

Mitchell Froom and Marc Ribot - industrial jack-ass

Discography

Albums:

• Mighty Like A Rose, 1991
• Mighty Like A Rose (Deluxe Edition), Rhino, 2002
• This section may be incomplete.

Singles:

• This section may be incomplete.

Collections:

• Album Name, Year
• This section may be incomplete.

Alternate Versions:

• This section may be incomplete.

Soundtracks:

• none

Various Artists collections:

• none

Covers

Recorded by:

• none
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Performed by:

• none
• This section may be incomplete.

Bootlegs

• This section is incomplete.