Yesterday's coal train came to rest in the bitter cutting
And while the signals took an age to change, it was easy pickings
So you go to the movies where they smash it up
You want to feel your heart pumping, it makes you feel good
All through the karaoke, girls were squealing the hits
While another Mercedes-Benz gets blown to bits
While all the time in the camptown theatres of Piccadilly
They're going to throw a black-face minstrel show
For the barefoot children that they're always selling
They'll say "It's quaint" as the guilty ones faint
And claim they ain't underneath this paint
We interrupt these liberal saints with their whips and watermelon
Reports are coming in of a coal-train robbery
It's like another world, or it had better be
So we return to whitewashed pout of his committed lips
Since he was declared the long lost fountain of youth that drips and drips and drips
They'll be sending him round from door to door to sell you back what's already yours
"So many good deeds, so little time," say the advertising agency swine
When man has destroyed what he thinks he owns
I hope no living thing cries over his bones
If you don't believe that I'm going for good
You can count the days I'm gone and chop up the chairs for firewood
Reports are coming in of a coal-train robbery
It's like another world, or it had better be
Reports are coming in of a coal-train robbery
It's like another world, or it had better be
Reports, reports, reports, reports...
Alternate lyrics
From the demo version on Spike (Deluxe Edition):
Yesterday's coal train came to rest in the bitter cutting
And while the signals took an age to change, it was easy pickings
So you go to the movies where they smash it up
You want to feel your heart pumping, it makes me feel good
All through the karaoke, they were screaming the hits
While another Mercedes-Benz gets blown to bits
Outside a khaki-covered river oozes by
And still they say that there’s a big important world out there to try
"What’s yours is yours, what’s yours is mine," so say those City of London swine
"So let’s steal something that’s really worth it"
Reports are coming in of a coal train robbery
It’s like another world, or it had better be
Come down the banks where you used to court, your heart pumping
You know where she kissed you as the sweating trains pulled in
A scrap of grime for a glimmer of heat beneath the rails between your feet
You used to pick rags from the workhouse floor
You don’t want much, you just want more
You waited fifteen years for the whistle to blow
When they say "work," when they say "no"
If you don’t believe that I’m going for good
You can count the days I’m gone and chop up the chairs for firewood
Reports are coming in of a coal train robbery
It’s like another world, or it had better be
Reports are coming in of a coal train robbery
Reports are coming in of a coal train robbery
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Coal-Train Robberies |
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Written by | Declan MacManus |
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Performed by | Elvis Costello |
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Produced by | Elvis Costello, Kevin Killen & T Bone Burnett |
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Musicians | Elvis Costello - vocals, electric & acoustic guitars, piano T Bone Burnett - National resonator guitar Benmont Tench - Vox Continental organ, Baldwin spinet Jerry Scheff - fuzz & Hofner basses Jerry Marotta - drums Michael Blair - tympani, tambourine, whiplash, anvil |
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Recorded | 1988, Ocean Way, Los Angeles |
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Released | February 6, 1989 |
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Albums | Spike, 1989 (CD/cassette only) |
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Singles | Veronica, 1989 |
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Promos | "Let Him Dangle" Plus Other Tracks You Might Like, 1989 Malice And Magic, 1994 (Japan) Selections From My Aim Is True, Spike And All This Useless Beauty, 2001 |
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Length | 3:12 |
Alternate versions
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