Elvis Costello & The Imposters – Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter lyrics

[Verse 1]
She says, "What is it that I've done?
Did you want me to be punished?"
When she woke up one day to find
That he had started to vanish

[Pre-Chorus]
But if you overhear voices
Perhaps you should not be listenin' at all
Twitch the vigilant lips
Make a slow, sour face
Said the scandalous whispering

[Chorus]
She's out on her own with the rest of her riches
As the kids tear down the refrigerator pictures
She picks up the bills, pays off the babysitter
Because everybody knows burnt sugar is so bitter

[Bridge]
Once there was a time
Before you turned strange
She thought they would be together
For more than a lifetime
Look at 'em now
My, how things have changed
He can tell his sweetheart
Out of any girl on just a whiff
And turn it from a candy to a caramel
And make her hate the silhouette she used to feel
And say, "I know nothing about him"

[Verse 2]
Now what's left of the birthday cake
Is very beautifully frosted
An absent father picks up the phone
To find the number's unlisted
But while the kids are distracted
They don't notice she's nervous at all
But how long will it take
Not to make a mistake
When a gentleman comes to call?

[Chorus]
She's out on her own with the rest of her riches
As the kids tear down the refrigerator pictures
They already know how a woman may advance
From a pretty picture hat to a supermarket trance
And if it's unkind, you might as well forget it
Because everybody knows burnt sugar is so bitter
Burnt sugar is so bitter
Burnt sugar