Dust - Elvis Costello

If dust could only talk

What would we hear it say?

Before it’s brushed aside

Just as it’s swept away

It’s just the evidence

It’s of no consequence

It’s only flesh and bone

Why don’t you leave it alone?

If dust could only gather into lines of chalk

Around a silhouette detective fiction walks

For it’s the only witness that can testify

Can I spit out the truth

Or would you rather just swallow a lie?

Why did they dam the land?

How did they flood the plain?

Did they erase the name?

And wipe away the stain

You kept your mouth well shut

Appeared to turn your coat

Now there’s a name for you but it’s stuck in my throat

If dust could only mutter

Or in laughter trill

If it could warn and whisper from the windowsill

For it’s the only witness that can testify

Can I spit out the truth?

Or would you rather just swallow a lie?

Here comes the juggernaut

Here come The Poisoners

They choke the life and land

And rob the joy from us

Why do they taste of sugar

When they are made of money

Here come the Lamb of God

And the butcher’s boy, Sonny

If dust could only gather in a needle track

Then it would skip a beat and it would jump right back

If dust could only gather in a needle track

Then it would skip a beat

And all the sense I lack