[ti:Red Cotton]
[ar:Elvis Costello]
[al:Secret, Profane And Sugarcane]

[00:00.00]Elvis Costello - Red Cotton
[00:10.00]
[00:15.02]I'm cutting up her pure white dress
[00:22.67]That I dyed red
[00:26.44]That I dyed red
[00:30.17]I'm putting scraps in cheap tin lockets
[00:37.29]What time erases and memory mocks
[00:45.22]I'll send them over the ocean foam
[00:52.62]Right into those gentle European homes
[01:02.43]
[01:06.82]The slave ship "Blessing" slipped from Liverpool
[01:13.63]Over the waves the Royal Navy rules
[01:20.38]To go and plunder the Kingdom of Benin
[01:26.45]Where certain history ends and shame begins
[01:33.75]Dahomey traders paid in powder and shot
[01:41.03]Line up their prisoners and they sell them in lots
[01:47.81]They packed them tight inside those coffin ships
[01:53.35]And took them to the brand new world of
[01:57.89]auction blocks and whips
[02:02.28]I'm cutting up her pure white dress
[02:09.87]That I dyed red
[02:13.54]That I dyed red
[02:17.40]I'm putting scraps in cheap tin lockets
[02:24.46]What time erases and memory mocks
[02:31.92]I'll send them over the ocean foam
[02:39.72]Right into those gentle European homes
[02:50.10]White is the sheet on your fine linen bed
[02:56.41]The blood stained red on each cotton thread
[03:03.69]Merchants will gather at St. George's Hall
[03:09.23]To unveil the kneeling slave who is carved upon the wall
[03:16.93]
[03:19.48]So picture the scene on the Old Salt House docks
[03:26.04]Where they loaded the iron shackles and locks
[03:32.45]Between a sandstone crocodile, a barrel and a bale
[03:38.45]You will see the nameless faces they were offering for sale
[03:48.03]
[03:50.52]So, I sing the praises of God's glory
[03:57.70]As a blue cetacean floats in the basement
[04:04.60]An elephant on the second storey
[04:12.19]They queue all day to see him
[04:15.61]In my American Museum
[04:21.12]
[04:24.64]But the Lord will judge us with fire and thunder
[04:31.89]As man continues in all his blunders
[04:39.04]It's only money
[04:42.53]It's only numbers
[04:46.16]Maybe it is time to put aside these fictitious wonders
[04:56.30]
[04:58.98]But man is feeble
[05:02.89]Man is puny
[05:06.68]And if it should divide the Union
[05:14.34]There is no man that should own another
[05:21.65]When he can't even recognise his sister and his brother
[05:32.82]