3 Blind Mice - Lyrics: Before They Were Famous (Vol.2)

3 Blind Mice - Lyrics
Before They Were Famous, Vol. 2

Click on a track name for the lyrics or just sing along as you scroll down the page!

1. Emily Has Compassion Fatigue
2. Storyteller
3. Heartstrings
4. Pray God
5. Don't Go Killing Me
6. Steel
7. Baby & All
8. Old Mother Hubbard

EMILY HAS COMPASSION FATIGUE

"Emily Has Compassion Fatigue" is another quirky song of Alex’s, thanks partly to the mandolins and partly to Alex’s inimitable way of combining the profound with the banal. It started out as a joke but came out really heavy... probably because someone started a war.

Emily can you hear the dodo call remember me
See the doormat has a new disease
Pizza eats a million trees
Emily the sky is finished with us and the sea
Is bruised and swollen with the memory
Of every god-forsaken anchovy

CHORUS:
Emily I know you love blindly
Emily I know you think kindly
The gentle breeze of summer in your hair
And so to the news the world is dying
The pundits decree we all start crying
But Emily’s in love and does not care

Emily’s so in love the world’s not there

Emily, God alone in broken heaven calls to me
What in hell on earth is come to be
He weeps we leap to reap his prophecy
Emily, Emily, Emily
You know I love you too and that it’s killing me
Please give me strength to know a way to feel
I either watch the news or make the meal

CHORUS

I heard on the news the world’s undone
And we’re all on our way to kingdom come
But Emily just made a cup of tea
Emily can we live minutiae
I won’t believe the sky is holed
If you can disbelieve the poisoned sea
Emily I’ll love you if you love me

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STORYTELLER

Garry explains his song like this: "If only we could make it more like the movies, then we could change the script so that everything turns out just right, the hero says the right thing at the right time, and so on. "Storyteller" imagines that we can."

Storyteller make this turn out right
I watched her walk away from me tonight
While I was here pretending
That there’d be some happy ending
You were writing me out

Storyteller let her think again
Put me back together with your pen
The least that you could do for me
Is find me some way to make her see
I need her

CHORUS:
Storyteller
Tell her
Storyteller

Storyteller write another line
And put me in the right place at the right time
With words you’ve chosen carefully
For me to say so perfectly
To her

CHORUS x 3

If I could only hold her now
In another place and time
She’d be mine

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HEARTSTRINGS

When Garry first played Lyndon "Heartstrings", Lyndon immediately knew that he wanted to have a go at singing it because he really liked the song and thought he could "do something with it" . Usually the Mice sing lead vocals on their own songs but this one is an exception. Garry describes the song as being "about the uneasy feeling of becoming surplus to requirements".

Lately I’ve been thinking
How greatly I abhor
The way you leave me listing
A day out from the shore
What used to be so simple
Simply isn’t any more
And it’s playing on the strings of my heart

This convoluted letter
Won’t tell you how I feel
I need to put it better
Then sign it and seal
I might neglect to send it
Depending on my mood
But it’s playing on the strings of my heart

CHORUS:
Lately I’ve been finding out
What loving you is all about
And frankly I can do without it

You set your expectations
A little too high
You’re way above your station
And I’m way below the line
And if that makes me the loser
Maybe that’s just fine
But it’s playing on the strings of my heart

CHORUS

Frankly I can do without this kind of love

CHORUS

Frankly I can do without this love

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PRAY GOD

Like "Don’t Go Killing Me", "Pray God" somehow reminds Lyndon of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. It’s about what would happen if you were flying high and lost your feet.... you wouldn’t even be able to stand up, let alone do all the fantastic things you had been doing. It would really bring you down to earth".

You don’t speak up
Your mouth is dry
You don’t look out
Your naked eye is closed
You chose not to cry
You make sense
You’re talking straight
The final word in the great debate is yours
You pronounce it mine

Chorus:
If your life feels complete
Look down at your feet
And pray god they last you

Chorus

You don’t make love
Your face fits in
Your open mouth your great big grin
So careless so fearless so high
The sun shines on your every day
While the world smiles at the things you say
And says hello
But you hear goodbye

Chorus x 2

You don’t make love
Your face fits in
Your open mouth
Your great big grin

Chorus x 4

Three blind mice
See how they run
Three blind mice
See how they run

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DON'T GO KILLING ME

A classic pretty song with angry lyrics, "Don’t Go Killing Me" is about the type of person who, with ulterior motives, might fool you into liking or loving them. Lyndon loves the song, written by Garry, but is concerned that in its acoustic form it’s in danger of leaning too far towards Country music.

You can wear a number of disguises
You don’t look any different to me
You can cover ignorance with shyness
And tell me that’s the only way to be
I could learn to live with your delusions
And never let them bring me to my knees
But don’t go killing me with kindness
Please

I could get a hang up on reprisals
And give you back the shit I have to take
I could lay my hand upon the Bible
And swear to God you’re nothing but a fake
You can keep the feathers for your own cap
And maybe that will set your mind at ease
But don't go killing me with kindness
Don’t go killing me with kindness
Don’t go killing me with kindness
Please

All you want to do is write a book about yourself
Not a single word about anybody else
You turn back the pages when you’re coming to the end
Over & over again

So you’ve become a victim of your own curse
You kick your last pedestal away
There’s no point singing on the last verse
There’s really nothing else I want to say
So here you are hanging on my final words
You quiver like a candle in the breeze

Don’t go killing me with kindness
Don’t go killing me with kindness
Don’t go killing me with kindness
Please
Don't
Don’t go
Don’t go killing me
Don’t go killing me with kindness
Please

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STEEL

The epic "Steel" came from an idea that Alex had.... it started life as a very simple guitar tune and lyric about where he was working at the time. He had this idea about "Making a Song and Dance", so it kind of evolved into a 10-minute journey through a song and 3 Blind Mice’s own version of dance music. This was something that they’d never attempted to do before.... and are not very likely to try again.... but it was fun!

Where I work
You will find metal
When I grind it clean
And weld it into cars to drive like new
I become the boy I was once
In my secret place
Setting fire to all my things to see the glow

Be ready
It’s a miracle
Be ready
It’s a miracle

Talk of steel
Turns your head metal
Especially the eye
Which cries for you to keep your vision clear
Every day
Pray your eye keeps crying
It’s the way of tears
They clean the filthy window of your soul

Be ready...

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BABY & ALL

This is another one of Lyndon’s favourite songs penned by Garry. He says "it struck me as Garry’s most Beatles influenced song". It’s about sibling rivalry, left unchecked, developing into something sinister.

Sweet little sister
Who could resist her
Lovable nursery crime
Holding her daughter
Under the water
Playfully counting the time

Beautiful Sunday
Hoping that one day
She’ll be the belle of the ball
Pretty in pigtails
Lashes & long nails
Cradle and baby and all

CHORUS:
But when the bough breaks
So it goes
Everything falls

November rockets
Dropped into pockets
Just enough time to retire
Hide in the playground
Burning the school down
Second encounter with fire

Freudian doctor
Says he can stop her
Follow my finger
But he is mistaken
She is awake and
Sending her saviour to sleep

Chorus x 2

Down will come baby, cradle & all x 3

Cradle & all

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OLD MOTHER HUBBARD

"Old Mother Hubbard" is a very eccentric song, "rather like Alex", says Lyndon.

Old Mother Hubbard
She’s a greedy child
She went and ate the cupboard bare
An now there’s nothing left that once was there

Old Mother Hubbard
Her eyes are wet with tears
The food was eaten on the sly
We get to kiss the dog goodbye

CHORUS:
We’ve got to be real
Give us something to feel
We’ve got to be real
Please give us something to feel

Old Mother Hubbard
She gives the game away
Everybody knows the cupboard lied
About exactly what it had inside

Old Mother Hubbard
Has grown into her hunger pain
The little dog stares on in disbelief
His own flesh looking good enough to eat

CHORUS

Keep the thought short
The day it is so very long you know
And then there is the ever present slip between the cup
And any lip service singing of the song

CHORUS

Old Mother Hubbard
She does the next best thing
Because the best is always yet to come
And the part is always greater than the sum

Old Mother Hubbard
She kicks up a song and dance
The little dog begins to tap his feet
And dreams a bowl of shiny rabbit meat

CHORUS x 2

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