Elvis Costello Poor Fractured Atlas song lyrics

He's out in the woods with his squirrel gun

To try to recapture his anger

He's screaming some words at the top of his lungs

Until he begins to feel younger

But back at his desk in the city we find

Our trembling punch-drunken fighter

Who can't find the strength now to punish the length

Of the ribbon in his little typewriter

Poor fractured Atlas

Threw himself across the mattress

Waving his withering pencil as if it were a pirate's cutlass

I'm almost certain he's trying to increase his burden

He said "That's how the child in me planned it

A woman wouldn't understand it"

I believe there was something that I wanted to say

Before I conclude this epistle

But you would forgive me for holding my tongue

'Cause man made the blade and the pistol

Yes man made the waterfall over the dam

To temper his tantrum with magic

Now you can't be sure of that tent of azure

Since he punched a hole in the fabric

Poor fractured Atlas

Threw himself across the mattress

Waving his withering pencil as if it were a pirate's cutlass

I'm almost certain he's trying to increase his burden

He said "That's how the child in me planned it

A woman wouldn't understand it"