Perfume Garden

You can shake your hips

You can seal your lips

I can't make that trip

And all life's fears

Can invade my ears

I can handle it

I can laugh with a friend

And remember the faces

We wore at school

Making the madness

And solitary sadness

A friendly fool

I thought of stories

They told us long ago

Of how the world was a perfume garden

I haven't yet learned to tame the creature there

And that at least I think is something good

All across the town

And across the street

You could feel the heat

Let me tell you friend

They could hardly wait

To mark your sheet

It was maximum joy

For the men they employed

To hold you down

Well I hope now you know

That this isn't the bliss

That you thought you found

Endless emptiness

An endless ringing bell

I couldn't show you

But I hope to one day

Pretty promises to teach the tender child

To welcome madness every Monday

Beck and call

It didn't seem to matter at all

Beck and call

You told us how to conquer it all

Beck and call

These children have nothing at all

Listening hard

For the voice of the child

I thought I heard

An alarm bell ringing

Pulled from my sleep

By invisible hands

The distant sound of a lady singing