Elvis Costello Tokyo Storm Warning song lyrics

Tokyo Storm Warning Lyrics

The sky fell over cheap Korean monster-movie scenery

And spilled into the mezzanine of the crushed capsule hotel

Between the Disney abattoir and the chemical refinery

And I knew I was in trouble but I thought I was in hell

So you look around the tiny room and you wonder where the hell you are

While the K.K.K. convention are all stranded in the bar

They wear hoods and carry shotguns in the main streets of Montgomery

But they're helpless here as babies 'cause they're only here on holiday

What do we care if the world is a joke

(Tokyo Storm Warning)

We'll give it a big kiss

We'll give it a poke

(Tokyo Storm Warning)

Death wears a big hat 'cause he's a big bloke

(Tokyo Storm Warning)

We're only living this instant

The black sand stuck beneath her feet in a warm Sorrento sunrise

A barefoot girl from Naples or was it a Barcelona hi-rise

Whistles out the tuneless theme song on a hundred cheap suggestions

And a million false seductions and all those eternal questions

So they flew the Super-Constellation all the way from Rimini

And feasted them on fish and chips from a newspaper facsimile

Now dead Italian tourists bodies litter up the Broadway

Some people can't be told you know they have to learn the hard way

Holidays are dirt-cheap in the Costa del Malvinas

In the Hotel Argentina they can hardly tell between us

For Teresa is a waitress though she's now known as Juanita

In a tango bar in Stanley or in Puerto Margarita

She's the sweetest and the sauciest

The loveliest and the naughtiest

She's Miss Buenos Aires in a world of lacy lingerie

Japanese God Jesus robots telling teenage fortunes

For all we know and all we care they might as well be Martians

They say gold paint on the palace gates comes from the teeth of pensioners

They're so tired of shooting protest singers

That they hardly mention us

While fountains fill with second-hand perfume

And sodden trading stamps

They'll hang the bullies and the louts that dampen down the day

We braved the cold November air and the undertaker's curses

Saying "Take me to the Folies Bergere and please don't spare the hearses"

For he always had a dream of that revolver in your purse

How you loved him 'til you hated him and made him cry for mercy

He said "Don't ever mention my name there or talk of all the nights you cried

We've always been like worlds apart now you're seeing two nightmares collide"