The People's Limousine - Elvis Costello

It’s a chilly Florentine evening

Two men in evening hats

Telling tales of the underground and

Fishing for Reds

Policemen armed with Uzis

Stand guard but they don’t speak

Ain’t seen no Michaelangelo

He’ll be here next week

The girl in the shoes

With the crystal heels went chaperoned by her brother

They raise a glass of amber wine

Take pictures of each other

Of the policemen in the fountains

And the sickle and the hammer

And they came with Uncle Romulus

With his walking cane and camera

She looked like someone’s girlfriend

She looked like a dream

She looked as unlikely

As the people’s limousine

Come and sit by me, girl, before I breathe the breath out of you

Hush your mouth and cover your eyes for I’ll tell your father of you

He paid to have you painted in the company of angels

Only to find you flirting anew with Chico Marx and perverted Engels

The patron saint of television smiles down from the shelf

Romulus can’t criticize but he can’t bless himself

He has a tin of pea-green paint and a big roll of black tape

To vandalize these obscenities then make his escape

She walked up to the nice policeman and asked him for a match

He saw Romulus approaching and slipped off the safety catch

Then cut down her uncle, he was painted red and green

Just as she was kidnapped in the people’s limousine