Lyrics Richard Thompson

Richard Thompson

Mother Knows Best

So you think you know how to wipe your own nose?

You think you know how to button your clothes?

You don't know shit if you hadn't already guessed

You're just a bump on the log of life, 'cause mother knows best

She tells everybody she was born in a ditch

She back-combs her hair 'til she looks like a witch

Wolves in her train, serpents suckle at her breast

Don't forget to wash behind your ears, 'cause mother knows best

Oh you lost your job, well ain't that a shame?

You got nobody but yourself to blame

You deserve everything you get for such a carelessness

And don't eat your peas off the knife, 'cause mother knows best

So your baby's hungry, so your baby's sick?

Don't make babies, that'll do the trick

Put another string of barbed wire in your little love nest

It's better than a cardboard box, 'cause mother knows best

She got a zombie army to serve her well

She got a thousand bloodhounds from the Gates of Hell

She got a hundred black horses with sulphur and coal on their breath

And she rides the unbelievers down, mother knows best

She says "Bring me your first-born, and I'll suck their blood

Bring me your poor, I can trample in the mud

Bring me your visionaries, I can put out their eyes

And bring me your scholars, I'll have them all lobotomised."

'Cause mother knows best