Testo: Elvis Costello. Rock & Roll Music. Tokyo Storm Warning.

The sky fell over cheap Korean monster-movie scenery
And spilled into the mezzanine of the crushed capsule hotel
Between the Disney abattoir and the chemical refinery
And I knew I was in trouble but I thought I was in hell

So you look around the tiny room
And you wonder where the hell you are
While the K.K.K. convention
Are all stranded in the bar

They wear hoods and carry shotguns
In the main streets of Montgomery
But they're helpless here as babies
'Cause they're only here on holiday

What do we care if the world is a joke
(Tokyo storm warning)
We'll give it a big kiss, we'll give it a poke
(Tokyo storm warning)
Death wears a big hat 'cause he's a big bloke
(Tokyo storm warning)
We're only living this instant

The black sand stuck beneath her feet
In a warm Sorrento sunrise
A barefoot girl from Naples
Or was it a Barcelona hi-rise

Whistles out the tuneless theme song
On a hundred cheap suggestions
And a million false seductions
And all those eternal questions

What do we care if the world is a joke
(Tokyo storm warning)
We'll give it a big kiss, we'll give it a poke
(Tokyo storm warning)
Death wears a big hat 'cause he's a big bloke
(Tokyo storm warning)
We're only living this instant

So they flew the Super-Constellation
All the way from Rimini
And feasted them on fish and chips
From a newspaper facsimile

Now dead Italian tourists bodies
Litter up the Broadway
Some people can't be told
You know they have to learn the hard way

Holidays are dirt-cheap in the Costa del Malvinas
In the Hotel Argentina they can hardly tell between us
For Teresa is a waitress
Though she's now known as Juanita

In a tango bar in Stanley or in Puerto Margarita
She's the sweetest and the sauciest
The loveliest and the naughtiest
She's Miss Buenos Aires in a world of lacy lingerie

What do we care if the world is a joke
(Tokyo storm warning)
We'll give it a big kiss, we'll give it a poke
(Tokyo storm warning)
Death wears a big hat 'cause he's a big bloke
(Tokyo storm warning)
We're only living this instant

Japanese God, Jesus robots telling teenage fortunes
For all we know and all we care they might as well be Martians
They say gold paint on the palace gates
Comes from the teeth of pensioners

They're so tired of shooting protest singers
That they hardly mention us
While fountains fill with second-hand perfume
And sodden trading stamps
They'll hang the bullies and the louts that dampen down the day

What do we care if the world is a joke
(Tokyo storm warning)
We'll give it a big kiss, we'll give it a poke
(Tokyo storm warning)
Death wears a big hat 'cause he's a big bloke
(Tokyo storm warning)
We're only living this instant

We braved the cold November air and the undertaker's curses
Saying, "Take me to the Folies Bergere
And please don't spare the hearses"
For he always had a dream of that revolver in your purse

How you loved him 'til you hated him
And made him cry for mercy
He said, "Don't ever mention my name there
Or talk of all the nights you cried
We've always been like worlds apart
Now you're seeing two nightmares collide"

What do we care if the world is a joke
(Tokyo storm warning)
We'll give it a big kiss, we'll give it a poke
(Tokyo storm warning)
Death wears a big hat 'cause he's a big bloke
(Tokyo storm warning)
We're only living this instant