You Hung The Moon

From The Elvis Costello Wiki
Jump to navigationJump to search

The homecoming fanfare is echoing still
Now tapping on tables
And sensing a chill
Poor families expecting loved one's return
Only summon some charlatan spectre
Oh, when will they learn?

You hung the moon
From a gallows in the sky
Choked out the light
From his blue lunar eye

The shore is a parchment
The sea has no tide
Since he was taken from my side

The lines of the fallen are viewed through a glass
But you cannot touch them at all
Or hear their footfall just as they go past
The drunken ground is where they are bound

You hung the moon
From a gallows in the sky
Put out the light in his blue lunar eye

The shore is a parchment
The sea has no tide
Since he was taken from my side

So slap out his terrors
And sneer at his tears
We deal with deserters like this
From the breech to the barrel, the bead we will level
Break earth with a shovel, quick march on the double
Lower him shallow like tallow down in the abyss

You hung the moon
From a gallows in the sky
Choked out the light in his blue lunar eye

The shore is a parchment
The sea has no tide
Since he was taken from my side

A Drawing Room In Pimlico, London - 1919

You Hung The Moon
Written byElvis Costello
Performed byElvis Costello
Produced byT Bone Burnett
MusiciansElvis Costello - vocal
Pete Thomas - drums
Dennis Crouch - double bass
Jeff Taylor - piano
Marc Ribot - acoustic guitar
Tom Peterson - bass clarinet
Darrell Leonard - flugelhorn
Ira Nepus - trombone
George Bohanon - baritone horn
Maurice Spears - bass trombone
Bruce Dukov (concertmaster), Caroline Campbell, Radu Pieptea, Neel Hammond, Lucia Micarelli - violins
Andrew Duckles, Matt Funes - viola
Dave Eggar - cello
Strings and bass clarinet arranged by Elvis Costello
Horns arranged by Darrell Leonard
Jill Dell'Abate - string contractor
AlbumsNational Ransom, 2010
SinglesA Slow Drag With Josephine
Length3:55

First known performance:
April 24, 2009, Birmingham, England
Last known performance:
November 11, 2013, Port Chester, NY
     (8 known performances)


Eye.jpg
“Sometimes a song arrives all at once, like this song I wrote on a train the other day, ‘You Hung The Moon’. It’s about a family trying to contact a shell-shocked young man who may have been shot as a coward. They are using a glass and a table and the advice of a charlatan. They did that kind of thing back then.” Newbury Today interview published April 16, 2009.

National RansomNational Ransom album cover.jpg

Covers

Erich Sellheim home studio production, sung in German 2022 YouTube

Internal links

External links