Radio Is Everything

I'm sitting here wondering if this matchbox will hold my dreams

Will the red head in my arms go up in flames?

Or dissolve mighty regimes with her screams, or so it seems

She dragged my face from the eye to my lip

On the rough side of the striking strip

To the port side of a sinking ship

Staring in a compact mirror

A siren calling from another era

While you made faces and then blew kisses

Drowned in a pool that hypnotized Narcissus

They say I have a perfect face for radio

And a trumpet for listening

A cheek to turn to you

An eye for glistening

Tear that tear from me

Hold it in your memory

Pull away the powder and pain painted dream

Of this and that disgrace

A silver band of marching soles

A button of brass, an epaulet of gold

That lantern light, that slight fanfare that consoles

That trivial, sniveling rosary

That ring-a-ding rosemary

Condemned a man, alas

At last, at requiem mass

I sound much better than I look

Like a hero in a book

Now there is too much at stake

But perhaps you mistook my mistake

For the tip in the print you dusted for

From the hand you forgot to shake

Tumbledown Dick said to King Oliver

"I don't shrink down at the thought of you

Give the people back their ringlet Prince

Just like you ought to do

Journey far from here like Gulliver

To lands at the edge of everywhere

That we have still to discover

Where there's a sole of a jackboot in a broken brace

Poised above a human face forever and ever"

You don't need to see my face

Radio is everything

You don't need to know my name

Radio is everything

The lie that I tell, it just doesn't matter

If I should deceive you or if I should flatter

If your bankroll gets thin while some kitty gets fatter

Radio is everything

From the straight to the narrow to the broadcast from within

Radio is everything

Radio is everything