The Decemberists - The Bagman's Gambit Lyrics

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On the lam from the law, on the steps of the capitol,
you shot a plain-clothes cop on the ten o'clock.
And I saw, momentarily, they flashed a photograph.
It couldn't be you.

You'd been abused so horribly,
but you were there in some anonymous room.

And I recall that fall--I was working for the government--
and in a bathroom stall off the national mall
how we kissed so sweetly! How could I refuse a favor or two?
And for a tryst in the greenery, I gave you documents and microfilm too.

From my ten-floor tenement, where once our bodies lay,
how I long to hear you say:
"No they'll never catch me now.
No, they'll never catch me, no
they cannot catch me now. 
We will escape somehow. Somehow."

It was late one night, I was awoken by the telephone.
I heard a strangled cry on the end of the line.
Purloined in Petrograd, they were suspicious of where your loyalties lay.
So I paid off a bureaucrat 
to convince your captors there to secret you away.

And at the gate of the embassy
our hands met through the bars
as your whisper stilled my heart:
"No they'll never catch me now.
No, they'll never catch me, no 
they cannot catch me now. 
We will escape somehow. Somehow."

And I dreamt one night you were there in court.
Head held high in uniform.

It was ten years on 
when you resurfaced in a motor car.
And with a wave of an arm, you were there and gone.

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lyrics submitted by Ryan on 04-03-2005
lyrics corrected on 04-03-2005