A gift to Harry Chapin fans
Bill Nash
just want to blow, and this time I had an idea that I'd
blow it constructively. Here's one of my favorite Harry
Chapin song lyrics, constructed from the most interesting
posture I've ever seen. If someone wants to put this in
the Digital Tradition lyric search database, be my guest.
It's just a gift from me.
Bill
"The Mayor of Candor Lied"
In the little town of Candor in the last year of my youth,
I learned the final lesson of the levels to the truth,
My father was a farmer, he'd go tilling in the ground,
My mother was a neighbor, she'd go visiting around.
But I didn't care,
For I had found the answer to a plowboy's lonely prayer,
She was the daughter of the mayor.
The mayor fought my courtship, for he'd made other plans,
He saw her married to a better man than a boy with farmer's hands,
I said, "I hate your father, it's so hard not to strike him."
She said, "You know I love you because you're so much like him."
And so I'd go sneaking in the evening,
And there she'd stand a crying in the dawn as I was leaving,
CHORUS
The Mayor of Candor lied, when he offered me his only daughter,
The Mayor of Candor tried, to take her off across the water,
What a thing to do to a young man in love,
And what a thing to do to your daughter.
One day with father on his tractor, and mother off again,
I go to find the mayor to work out what I can,
But he is not at his office, he is not at his home,
When I see him in the countryside he is not alone,
He's holding a woman and imagine my surprise,
When she jumps back from his arms, I look into my mother's eyes.
All my thoughts of outrage, embarassment and pain,
Were washed away by what then went roaring through my brain,
How the mayor's at my mercy, and I hear my own voice say,
"Your run for re-election, sir, is one month away,
And the world will never know of what I've seen here sir,
But I'll be with your daughter, is my meaning clear, sir?"
CH
My mother looks in horror at this compromise we made,
But the Mayor's rueful smile says this piper must be paid,
I had a month of joy in heaven from this deal I'd made in hell,
What was to happen then my friend, a prophet could not tell.
The day after his re-election, and a victory celebration,
The Mayor takes his family on a month long foreign vacation.
Oh Colleen, you know how much I love you,
There is no one I'd ever place above you,
Oh Colleen, you don't even know me,
To have you, there's nothing that's below me,
But time always passes after all,
And as the summer follows spring, so does the winter follow fall.
The day that they return, I stand waiting in the road,
I watch the car drive up, I wathc the passengers unload,
Of course she isn't there, of course I should have known,
The Mayor says that she has stayed, the decision is her own,
"She's finishing her schooling on that unseen foreign shore,
And I'll tell you very frankly boy, you'll not see her anymore."
CH
I spit out my hatred and my fury at his lies,
But he said, "You tried to blackmail me, you're just as bad as I,
Go on and do your damndest boy, throw your mother to the streets,
You know it's been too many years I've had to be discreet."
And as he stands there saying we're just 2 of a kind,
It hits me like a thunder bolt exploding in my mind,
As I look into his leering, aged, wrinkled mirror of my own face,
He laughs and sneers and says, "Of course dear Son,
Where do you think you came from in the first place?"
CH
MaskMaraud
"The Mayor of Candor Lied" is one of my favorite Chapin songs, too.
Now, if only someone could post the chords for it ... (hint! hint!)
Thanks, Tom