All These Strangers

[Verse 1] "Mistreat me darling and I might just disappear" Upon freighter running dark out of Algiers Put tiny grains in children's tears While taking 25% of all the flashbulbs and mementoes From the mechanized divisions rolling over your frontiers I saw my baby talking with another man today Speaking softly in a confidential way I saw a shadow pull his glove off As a bluebird flew over Life's is no pleasure When you doubt the one you love [Bridge] Who Are All These Strangers? [Chorus] I never will go back again Go back into the past For the flood is rising fast You can break your window and look down Into a muddy glass It's mirror or lens to burn [Verse 2] There was a deal done in Benghazi and Belgrade Upon a scimitar or other crooked blade Ransacks and loots, vacated suits And pistol points but never shoots Army sitting in a locomotive yard without their boots Upstairs your man is painting the rain out in the street Imagines woman that he's destined still to meet He's trying sidetrack one to count on Caught somewhere between countess or a courtesan And it's only love to feign and then it's gone [Bridge] [Verse 3] He's a privateer as dusk gets near A brigand after dark, his victim lined with chalk A corsair, filled with horsehair to the core Dashed on your eyes of Adamantine You despised his stripling whine That little smudger and the mouthpiece that he's with Using his clause just like a practised fingersmith I dreamed I took his digit prints And then sewed then on a villain's hands Watched him ransom and demand Until called the flatfoots in [Chorus] [Bridge] Who Are All These Strangers? All These Strangers I sat down on a narrow bed I thought about the things she said All These Strangers [Outro] How I wished the night would never end So tried to stop the days ahead I'd carve her name down in the wood Some small remembrance if I could