Jackals - Mia Doi Todd

Jackals hide behind handsome faces

Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, remind me, remind me

In a bedroom of a brick & stuck house

A girl in Seersucker pants reached for a book

To pass the day away

Not yet knowing the proper way to read

The girl took the tales as fact and cried all afternoon

After dinner and after her daily bath

Clean-skinned and dump-haired she lay down to bed

As the lights went out

Under an Amish quilt and inside her flannel pajamas

The girl wrestled with troubled thoughts

Troubled sleep, troubled dreams

The elevator opens on

A while frost-bitten world

I step out and the doors slide closed

Leaving me alone

With the only one who could hurt me

Jackals hide behind handsome faces

Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, remind me, remind me

Old Giapetto sold all his winter clothes

To buy books for his wooden son

Who lied, lied through his nose

And when the circus wagon came rollin' through the town

The boy jumped aboard and left

Not even a note

In desperation over this disappearance

The old man with arthritic hands tore down his house

Plank by plank

And carried each one by one, down to the harbour

Trading his shoes for some nails and a hammer to build

To build himself a boat

The waters are wide

But I will find my child

I’ll set out into the sun

Until I met my end

In the belly of a whale

Jackals hide behind handsome faces

Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, remind me, remind me

Nineteen eithy two, Mercedes Blues and the rumbling sputter

Of a diesel engine and the gooseflesh returns

Isn’t it a pity, isn’t it a shame

We can’t see ourselves inside this moving sedans

The windshield’s too busy to reflect

The outside looks lovely and oh so tempting

The light on the smokestacks and water towers beckons me

Beckons to me

So hello, my newfound friend Disaster

Come sit down at our round-table

Let us ask your advices

Should we bring on the accident?

Drive on my friends

There’s love beyond this bend

Sky’s falling doctor’s calling

But still it’s worth the wait

Time’s passed

Time is passing

And time will pass

Jackals hide behind handsome faces

Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, remind me, remind me