Saints and Snakes

Steve Kilbey / Martin Kennedy

Appears On:

Lyrics (unofficial)

[backmasked excerpts from the poem]

She wandered long and lonely down the corridor
But the hotel had become a prison
And the prison had become a forest
And the summer changed to an austere autumn
And the autumn had faded into a cruel, wretched winter
The saints and snakes on her skin writhed in agony
The butterfly over her ribs, oh baby, it's a wild world
A letter from a bank
"We're afraid we cannot give you any credit at this time"
The speed in her head was full throttle
Ideas higgledy-piggledy, helter-skelter
Everything in unbearable crystal clarity
The nausea of existence
The horror of our constant wars
The Holocaust against all other creatures
The dumb dead leaves at her feet still sobbing
The nothingness of a promise
The drone of music in a graveyard at sunset
That never hurt like words
The sticks and the stones
That never hurt like words

In a drowned world
Her career in ruins
No more holidays
No more days of wine, women and the roses song
Song of Briar
Song of Thorn
Beauty on an Earth where no one cares
Morning becomes abhorrent
Evening goes down the drain
Another idiot, another bed
Another regret to cling into
The brambles are wrapped around the iron
She says, "It's a maze to be deciphered"
But I already give up
I did this to myself
But it's everybody else's fault
I can never admit I'm wrong, I can never think I'm not right
I did my best to help everyone I knew
I say I went out of my way
Now why has this happened to me?
Maybe once, maybe twice
Ungrateful minions
I should blast them all
But the iron does not flinch
And the air does not warm to her words
And the galaxy shudders through its mysterious orbit
In the dark, oblivious