A rat came into my room
It gnawed at the mousetrap
It stopped the clock
and knocked over the tankard.
I took it into my white arms
It was warm like a child.
I cradled it so tenderly
and softly sang:
Sleep, my rat, my cop,
Sleep, my old bobby
Don't you blow your whistle on the sleepy wharves
when I hold my darling's hand.
A Chinese came out of the shadows
A Chinese looked at London
He wore a marine cap
adorned with a coral anchor
On Charly's doorstep
in Penny Fields, I smiled to him.
In the silence of the night,
I whispered to him:
I would like, I would like I don't know what
I wish I would no longer hear my voice.
I'm afraid, afraid of you, afraid of myself.
On his woolen blue sweater
was written in rounded letters
the name of an old company
that roams the world, or so they say.
We went to Charly's
in Penny Fields, far from worries,
and I danced all night
with my bedazzled Chink.
And it was bright and warm at Charly's
Tess played "Daisy Bell" on her old piano
A camel-toothed piano.
I led the Chinese into my room
He put the rat out
He stopped the clock
and knocked over the tankard.
I took him in my trembling arms
to soothe him like a child.
He fell asleep on his back...
And then I took his knife from him...
It was a treacherous and icy knife,
a nasty knife red with truth
a nasty red knife with no special purpose.