Thick As Thieves Lyrics by Natalie Merchant

Thick As Thieves

Remember how it all began
The apple and the fall of man
The price we paid
So the people say
Down a path of shame it lead us
Dared to bite the hand that fed us
The fairy tale
The moral end
The wheel of fortune
Never turns again

The worst of it has come and gone
In the chaos of millennium
In the falling out of the doomsday crowd
Their last retreat is moving slow
They burn their bridges as they go
The heretic is beatified
He'll teach the harlot's child to smile

Wracked again by indecision
Should we make that small incision
Testify to the bleeding heart inside?
We cut, we scratched
We rent, we slashed
And when he opened up at last
Found a cul-de-sac
Deep and black
Of smoke and ash

The wicked king of parody
Is kissing all his enemies
On the seventh day
Of the seventh week
The tyrant's voice is softer now
But just for one forgiving hour
Before the rise of his
Iron fist again

I've come tonight
I've come to know
The way we are
The way we'll go
Come to measure this
The width of the wide abyss

I come to you in restless sleep
Where all your dreams turn bitter-sweet
With voodoo doll philosophies
And day-glo holy trinities

The crooked raft that leaves the shore
Ferries drunken souls aboard
Pilgrims march to Compestela
Visions of their saint in yellow

All follow deep in trance
Lost in a catatonic dance
Know no future
Damn the past
Blind, warm, ecstatic
Safe at last...