John Cooper Clarke
"Film Extra's Extra"

An X-film extra's extra
I exit when I'm ex'd
I get it in the neck
I get my check
But i don't get what comes next

I got my break in the 'frisco quake
Clark Gable got the lead
They said 'make like a piece of steak...
Lay on that plate and bleed'

Swine herds and hunch backs
Led to bigger things
I was Pontius Pilate's punch bag
You remember king of king's

Understudy studies scripts
And stunt men dice with doom
You found me in a gothic crypt
Or in some squalid room

Where Clint Eastwood kicks my teeth in
Several times a day
I'm the best dead body in the business
I don't have much to say

Except... aaahhh, ooohhh, ahh, ohh, uhh, ahh, uhhh
And ohh, ahh, nhhh, ahh ohh and thank you lord
What can you say on the end of a sword
You just run out of breath

I carried seven ceasars
Around seven cities of gold
I was the one who didn't whip Jesus
In the greatest story ever told

Fake snakes, mock crocks
And killers cut my throat
That's me in the pine box
I know all about boats

I was on the titanic
I did what was required
And i was the first to panic
On the day the earth caught fire

Hacksaw blades and hand grenades
Dum dum bullets and darts
When pagans raid the stockade
I get mangled by their carts

I fall from trains and torture dames
Just to keep in trim
I get slain on memory lane
And the people say 'oh it's him'

It was in this third rate thriller
I actually got to talk
Saying 'look... the killer gorillas,
They're eating up New York'

I ride this phony pony
In a place a bit like the world
In the eyes of adults only
I never get the girl

Tarantulas invade my bed
Ohh it's wonderful
I'm a talking head... full of lead
Blublblublblublblublblub

I scream all the way to the chair
I scream in the face of tanks
I take the stairway to the stairs
and I scream all the way to the banks

Photogenic passion
Impales me on it's knife
Hero's made from fashion
But dying's a job for life