Pills & Soap - Elvis Costello, The Attractions

They talked to the sister, the father and the mother

With a microphone in one hand and a checkbook in the other

And the camera noses in to the tears of her face

The tears on her face

You can put them back together with your paper and paste

But you can’t put them back together

You can’t put them back together

What would you say?

What would you do?

Children and animals two by two

Give me the needle

Give me the rope

We’re going to melt them down for pills and soap

Give me the needle

Give me the rope

Four and twenty crowbars, jemmy your desire

Out of the frying pan into the fire

The king is in the counting house

Some folk have all the luck

And all we get are pictures of lord and lady muck

They come from lovely people with a hard line in hypocrisy

There are ashtrays of emotion for the fag ends of the aristocracy

The sugar coated pill is getting bitterer still

You think your country needs you but you know it never will

So pack up your troubles in a stolen handbag

Don’t dilly dally boys rally round the flag

Give us your daily bread in individual slices

And something in the daily rag to cancel any crisis

We’re going to melt them down for pills and soap