Elton JOHN

Captain Fantastic raised and regimented
Hardly a hero
Just someone his mother might know
Very clearly a case for corn flakes and classics
Two teas both with sugar please
In the back of an alley
While little Dirt Cowboys turned brown in their saddles
Sweet chocolate biscuits
And red rosy apples in summer
For it's hay make
And Hey mom, do the papers say anything good.
Are there chances in life for little Dirt Cowboys
Should I make my way out of my home in the woods

Brown Dirt Cowboy
Still green and growing
City slick Captain
Fantastic the feedback
The honey the hive could be holding
For there's weak winged young sparrows
That starve in the winter
Broken young children
On the wheels of the winners
And the sixty-eight summer festival wallflowers
Are thinning

For cheap easy meals
And hardly a home on the range
Too hot for the band
With a desperate desire for change
We've thrown in the towel too many times
Out for the count and when we're down
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
From the end of the world to your town

And all this talk of Jesus
Coming back to see us
Couldn't fool us
For we were spinning out our lines
Walking on the wire
Hand in hand went music and the rhyme
The Captain and the Kid
Stepping in the ring
From here on sonny sonny sonny
It's a long and lonely climb

2. Tower Of Babel

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Snow
Cement
And ivory young towers
Someone called us Babylon
Those hungry hunters
Tracking down the hours
But where were all your shoulders when we cried
Were the darlings on the sideline
Dreaming up such cherished lies
To whisper in your ear before you die

It's party time for the guys in the tower of Babel
Sodom meet Gomorrah
Cain meet Abel
Have a ball y'all
See the letches crawl
With the call girls under the table
Watch them dig their graves
'Cause Jesus don't save the guys
In the tower of Babel

Watch them dig their graves
'Cause Jesus don't save the guys
In the tower of Babel, no no no

Junk
Angel
This closet's always stacked
The dealers in the basement
Filling your prescription
For a brand new heart attack

But where were all your shoulders when we cried
Were the doctors in attendance
Saying how they felt so sick inside
Or was it just the scalpel blade that lied

3. Bitter Fingers

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I'm going on the circuit
I'm doing all the clubs
And I really need a song boys
To stir those workers up
And get their wives to sing it with me
Just like in the pubs
When I worked the good old pubs in Stepney

Oh could you knock a line or two
Together for a friend
Sentimental tear inducing with a happy end
And we need a tune to open our season at Southend
Can you help us?

It's hard to write a song with bitter fingers
So much to prove so few to tell you why
Those old die-hards in Denmark Street start laughing
At the keyboard player's hollow haunted eyes
It seems to me a change is really needed
I'm sick of tra la las and la de das
No more long days hacking hunks of garbage
Bitter fingers never swung on swinging stars, swinging stars

I like the warm blue flame
The hazy heat it brings
It loosens up the muscles
And forces you to sing
You know it's just another hit and run
From the tin pan alley twins

And There's a chance that one day
You might write a standard lads
So churn them out quick and fast
And we'll still pat your backs
'Cause we need what we can get
To launch another dozen acts
Are you working

4. Tell Me When The Whistle Blows

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There's a dusty old gutter he's lying in now
He's blind and he's old
And there's a bottle that rolls down the road
Me I'm young and I'm so wild
And I still feel the need
Of your apron strings once in a while
For there's taxi cabs hooting
But I can't be foot-loose forever
My suitcase it's a cheap one
My darling she's a dear one
My head's feeling light as a feather

Take my ears and tell me when the whistle blows
Wake me up and tell me when the whistle blows
Long lost and lonely boy
you're just a black sheep going home
I want to feel your wheels of steel
Underneath my itching heels
Take my money
Tell me when the whistle blows

Part of me asked the young man for the time
With a cool vacant stare of undue concern
He said nine
It's not so bad but I really do love the land
And rather all this than those diamante lovers
In Hyde Park holding hands
Blowing heat through my fingers
Trying to kill off this cold
Will the street kids remember
Can I still shoot a fast cue
Has this country kid still got his soul

5. Someone Saved My Life Tonight

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When I think of those East End lights
Muggy nights
The curtains drawn in the little room downstairs
Prima Donna lord you really should have been there
Sitting like a princess perched in her electric chair
And it's one more beer
And I don't hear you anymore
We've all gone crazy lately
My friends out there rolling round the basement floor

And someone saved my life tonight sugar bear
You almost had your hooks in me didn't you dear
You nearly had me roped and tied
Altar-bound, hypnotized
Sweet freedom whispered in my ear
You're a butterfly
And butterflies are free to fly
Fly away, high away bye bye

I never realised the passing hours
Of evening showers
A slip noose hanging in my darkest dreams
I'm strangled by your haunted social scene
Just a pawn out-played by a dominating queen
It's four o'clock in the morning
Damn it listen to me good
I'm sleeping with myself tonight
Saved in time, thank God my music's still alive

And I would have walked head on into the deep end of the river
Clinging to your stocks and bonds
Paying your H.P. demands forever
They're coming in the morning with a truck to take me home
Someone saved my life tonight, someone saved my life tonight
Someone saved my life tonight, someone saved my life tonight
Someone saved my life tonight
So save your strength and run the field you play alone

6. Meal Ticket (Gotta Get A)

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I can hound you if I need to
Sip your brandy from a crystal shoe
In the corner, in the corner
While the others climb reaching dizzy heights
The world's in front of me in black and white
I'm on the bottom line, I'm on the bottom line

I'd have a cardiac if I had such luck
Lucky losers, lucky losers landing on skid row
Landing on skid row
While the Diamond Jims
And the Kings road pimps
Breath heavy in their brand new clothes
I'm on the bottom line, I'm on the bottom line

And I gotta get a meal ticket
To survive you need a meal ticket
To stay alive you need a meal ticket
Feel no pain, no pain
No regret, no regret
When the line's been signed
You're someone else
Do yourself a favor, the meal ticket does the rest

Shake a hand if you have to
Trust in us and we will love you anyway, anyway
Don't leave us stranded in the jungle
With fifty percent that's hard to handle
Ain't that so, ain't that so

7. Better Off Dead

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There was a face on a hoarding that someone had drawn on
And just enough time for the night to pass by without warning
Away in the distance there's a blue flashing light
Someone's in trouble somewhere tonight
As the flickering neon stands ready to fuse
The wind blows away all of yesterday's news

Well they've locked up their daughters and they battened the hatches
They always could find us but they never could catch us
Through the grease streaked windows of an all night cafe
We watched the arrested get taken away
And that cigarette haze has ecology beat
As the whores and the drunks filed in from the street

'Cause the steams in the boiler the coals in the fire
If you ask how I am then I'll just say inspired
If the thorn of a rose is the thorn in your side
Then you're better off dead if you haven't yet died

8. Writing

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Is there anything left
Maybe steak and eggs
Waking up to washing up
Making up your bed
Lazy days my razor blade
Could use a better edge

It's enough to make you laugh
Relax in a nice cool bath
Inspiration for navigation
Of our new found craft
I know you and you know me
It's always half and half

And we were oh oh, so you know
Not the kind to dawdle
Will the things we wrote today
Sound as good tomorrow
We will still be writing
In approaching years
Stifling yawns on Sundays
As the weekends disappear

We could stretch our legs if we'd half a mind
But don't disturb us if you hear us trying
To instigate the structure of another line or two
Cause writing's lighting up
And I like life enough to see it through

9. We All Fall In Love Sometimes

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Wise men say
It looks like rain today
It crackled on the speakers
And trickled down the sleepy subway trains
For heavy eyes could hardly hold us
Aching legs that often told us
It's all worth it
We all fall in love sometimes

The full moon's bright
And starlight filled the evening
We wrote it and I played it
Something happened it's so strange this feeling
Naive notions that were childish
Simple tunes that tried to hide it
But when it comes
We all fall in love sometimes

Did we, didn't we, should we couldn't we
I'm not sure 'cause sometimes we're so blind
Struggling through the day
When even your best friend says
Don't you find
We all fall in love sometimes

And only passing time
Could kill the boredom we acquired
Running with the losers for a while
But our Empty Sky was filled with laughter
Just before the flood
Painting worried faces with a smile

10. Curtains

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I used to know this old scarecrow
He was my song
My joy and sorrow
Cast alone between the furrows
Of a field no longer sown by anyone

I held a dandelion
That said the time had come
To leave upon the wind
Not to return
When summer burned the earth again

Cultivate the freshest flower
This garden ever grew
Beneath these branches
I once wrote such childish words for you

But that's okay
There's treasure children always seek to find
And just like us
You must have had
A once upon a time

Lonely lovely lady ....

11. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

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Picture yourself in a boat on a river,
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
Cellophane flowers of yellow and green,
Towering over your head.
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes,
And she's gone.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain
Where rocking horse people eat marshmellow pies,
Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers,
That grow so incredibly high.
Newspaper taxis appear on the shore,
Waiting to take you away.
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds,
And you're gone.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Picture yourself on a train in a station,
With plasticine porters with looking glass ties,
Suddenly someone is there at the turnstyle,
The girl with the kaleidoscope eyes.

12. One Day (at a Time)

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You are my weakness, you are my strength
Nothing I have in the world makes better sense
Cause I'm the fish and you're the sea
When we're together or when we're apart
There's never a space in between the beat of our hearts
Cause I'm the apple and you're the tree

One day at a time is all we do
One day at a time is good for you

You are my woman, I am your man
Nothing else matters at all, now I understand
That I'm the door and you're the key
And every morning I wake in your smile
Feeling your breath on my face and the love in your eyes
Cause you're the honey and I'm the bee

One day at a time is all we do
One day at a time is good for us two (you too)

13. Philadelphia Freedom

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I used to be a rolling stone
You know if a cause was right
I'd leave to find the answer on the road
I used to be a heart beating for someone
But the times have changed
The less I say the more my work gets done

`Cause I live and breathe this Philadelphia freedom
From the day that I was born I've waved the flag
Philadelphia freedom took me knee-high to a man
Yeah gave me peace of my mind daddy never had

Oh Philadelphia freedom shine on me, I love you
Shine a light through the eyes of the ones left behind
Shine a light shine the light
Shine a light won't you shine the light
Philadelphia freedom I love you, yes I do

If you choose to you can live your life alone
Some people choose the city
Some others choose the good old family home
I like living easy without family ties
Till the whippoorwill of freedom zapped me
Right between the eyes

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