God's Comic

Words & Music:

Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus (Elvis Costello)

 

Em B7   Em B7   Em G Am A# B

 

Em           B7            Em      B7      G     G/F#  C  D

I wish you'd known me when I was alive.  I was a funny fellow.

Am              B7       Am         B7     Am       B7          Am          B7

The crowd would hoot and holler for more.  I wore a drunk's red nose for applause.

G      G/F#     C       D              G            G/F#        C            D

Oh yes, I was a comical priest; with a joke for the flock and a hand up your fleece.

Em           B7            Em           D

Drooling the drink and the lipstick and grease paint

G                              C     D   C       B7

Down the cardboard front of my dirty dog collar.

 

CHORUS:

        Em            B7            Em            D

Now I'm dead, now I'm dead, now I'm dead, now I'm dead

        G     G/F#  C         D

And I'm going on to meet my reward.

I was scared, I was scared, I was scared, I was scared

G   G/F#      C     D           C      B7

He might have never heard God's Comic.

 

So, there he was on a waterbed, drinking a cola of a mystery brand.

Reading an airport novellette, listening to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem.

He said before it had really begun, "I prefer the one about my son.

I've been wading through all this unbelievable junk

And wondering if I should have given it all to the monkeys."

 

CHORUS:

 

BRIDGE:

C            D                  C        D              G

I'm going to take a little trip down paradise's endless shores.

G                                                              B7          E

They say that travel broadens the mind 'til you can't get your head out of doors.

 

I'm sitting here on the top of the world.  I hang around in the longest night.

Until each beast has gone to bed and then I say "God bless" and turn out the light.

While you lie in the dark afraid to breathe

And you beg and you promise and you bargain and you plead.

Sometimes you confuse me with Santa Claus,

It's the big white beard I suppose.

I'm going up to the pole where you folks die of cold.

I might be gone for a while if you need me.

 

CHORUS: