I’m a maker of ballads right prettyI write them right here in the streetYou can buy them all over the cityyours for a penny a sheetI’m a word pecker out of the printersout of the dens of Gin LaneI’ll write up a scene on a counter- confessions and sins in the main, boysconfessions and sins in the mainThen you’ll find me in Madame Geneva’skeeping the demons at bayThere’s nothing like gin for drowning them inbut they’ll always be back on a hanging day, on a hanging dayThey come rattling over the cobblesthey sit on their coffins of blackSome are struck dumb, some gabbletop-heavy on brandy or sackThe pews are all full of fine fellowsand the hawker has set up her shopAs they’re turning them off at the gallowsshe’ll be selling right under the drop, boysselling right under the dropThen you’ll find me in Madame Geneva’skeeping the demons at bayThere’s nothing like gin for drowning them inbut they’ll always be back on a hanging day, on a hanging day
Mark Knopfler, Kill to Get Crimson
madame-genevas, pedlars, poets, public-hanging, troubadours