Lyrics The Handsome Family

The Handsome Family

Woodpecker

Lovely Mary, sweetie

That famous window smasher

Was just a quiet gloom of yodel-eh-hi-hi

From across Wisconsin

She took a pitch of cocaine

But only for her nerves

Was known for trembling hands

A little bottle in her purse

She was a woodpecker

She couldn’t help but free

All the things that had inside

All the pretty trees

At dusk she took the train

Just a hammer in her bag

She went from town to town, yodel-eh-hi-hi

Smashing every plain of glass

Store fronts mirrors, windshields

Shattered in the night

Her hammer through a window’s gleam

Filled the air with light

(2x)

She was a woodpecker

She couldn’t help but free

All the things that had inside

All the pretty trees

In a state asylum

The windows caged in bars

The soaked her in a nice cold bath

Til she was seeing stars

Wrapped up in her straitjacket

Her mind still hammered on

Until the glasses that are smashed, yodel-eh-hi-hi

And she flew off into the trees

She was a woodpecker

She couldn’t help but free

All the things that had inside

All the pretty trees