There once was a boy
So alone in his flight
That he took off his wings
And fell into the night
Met a girl with no shoes
At the Last Dance of Hope
Said "If you bring the footstool,
Honey, I'll bring the rope."
So they hung... all their clothes
In a house on a hill
He went on the wagon.
She went off the pill.
And they went to the chapel
In the way lovers will
Beneath a battered umbrella.
Just a battered umbrella.
Well the two became one
And the one became three
Everything they had done
Vanished from memory
He changed the diapers.
She made the bed
In their own private Eden
That was all in their heads
And they saw to their child
And they saw to their cares
Put their dreams all in boxes
‘Neath the old basement downstairs
When the hurricane hit
They were caught unawares
With a battered umbrella.
Just a battered umbrella.
But she wasn't his mother;
Couldn't scratch every itch
And he wasn't her father,
Just a son of a bitch
They began to see failings.
They began to find fault.
Spent his nights at the Owl Club.
Hers with religious cults.
In the mornings her feet
Felt an ache to be shod
Over supper he'd peek
At the sky, sigh and nod
Left the kid in a corner
With no shelter but God
And a battered umbrella.
Dirty, battered umbrella.
Now there's a boy
With no wings and no prayer
With no means to employ
To escape anywhere
First he lived with his mother.
Then he lived with his dad.
When they all lived together
It had not seemed so bad
But they said, "It's no use, son.
We'd shatter the night."
Yet they both lived inside him,
Where they got on all right.
He'd go out of his mind
When they couldn't unite
Beneath his battered umbrella.
Holy, battered umbrella.