elvis costello
red cotton
I'm cutting up her pure white dress That I dyed red That I dyed red I'm putting scraps in cheap tin lockets What time erases and memory mocks I'll send them over the ocean foam Right into those gentle European homes  The slave ship "Blessing" slipped from Liverpool Over the waves the Royal Navy rules To go and plunder the Kingdom of Benin Where certain history ends and shame begins  Dahomey traders paid in powder and shot Line up their prisoners and they sell them in lots They packed them tight inside those coffin ships And took them to the brand new world of auction blocks and whips  So I'm cutting up her pure white dress That I dyed red That I dyed red I'm putting scraps in cheap tin lockets What time erases and memory mocks I'll send them over the ocean foam Right into those gentle European homes  White is the sheet on your fine linen bed The blood stained red on each cotton thread The merchants gather at St. George's Hall To unveil the kneeling slave who is carved upon the wall  So picture the scene on the old Salt House docks Where they loaded the iron shackles and locks Between a sandstone crocodile, a barrel and a bale You will see the nameless faces they were offering for sale  So, I sing the praises of God's glory As a blue cetacean floats in the basement An elephant on the second story They queue all day to see him In my American Museum  But the Lord will judge us, with fire and thunder As man continues with all his blunders It's only money It's only numbers Maybe it is time to put aside these fictitious wonders  And man is feeble Man is puny And if it should divide the Union There is no man who should own another When he can't even recognize his sister and his brother