Augie March - Thin Captain Crackers Lyrics

Here on the hill above the settlement
The buildings are talking
A tower to a terrace says the word's on the street
The dead are walking

The brows are arched of the mews across the street
By a pale ocher light are made out heavy reliefs
Where all your dreams are borrowed
All your senses are thieves
And Ned Kelly won't ride past your window
Despite the freeze on your disbelief

Don't bring 'em up if you can't put 'em down
Thin Captain Crackers bowling naked
Through the center of the town
The sun won't bake his blue skin brown
He's been too long underground

I see, said a blind builder to his deaf daughter
As he picked up his hammer and saw
If blood is thicker than water
Why'd you dress in the dress that you wore?

The blind are drawn by a blank curiosity
Don't bring 'em up if you can't put 'em down
Drawn on mirrors where windows used to be
Don't bring 'em up if you can't put 'em down

Some people might say
My desire's not the captain of me
And Red Barry might fly from his pedestal
At night to spook the university

Don't bring 'em up if you can't put 'em down
Thin Captain Crackers bowling naked
Through the center of the town
The sun won't bake his blue skin brown
He's been too long underground

Oh, tailor my bones what need new clothes
But the lower half loves what the upper half loathes
I could get around like an intellectual I suppose
Wearing the highs with the lows

But I'd sooner sing these doleful drones
By barcoo dog and lager phones
My hand don't write when a feather it holds
It hangs like a wren with its neck wrung

Did the bells in my quasi commode
Where I have to shift my head
To see where my pillow go'd?
Some mornings I wake up by the side of the road
Bringing it up for the gutter
After putting it down for the crowd

I said I would arrive in the capital
Don't bring â€~em up if you can't put â€~em down
After chucking outside
The St. Augustine's purple parish hall
Don't bring â€~em up if you can't put â€~em down
And you know I can't