The Mayor of Candor Lied

In the little town of Candor, in the last year of my youth
 I learned the final lesson of the levels to the truth
 My father was a farmer he'd go tilling in the ground
 My mother was a neighbor she'd go visiting around
 But I didn't care
 For I had found the answer to a plowboy's lonely prayer
 She was the daughter of the mayor
 The Mayor fought my courtship for he'd made other plans
 He saw her married to a better man than a boy with farmer's hands
 I said, "I hate your father, it's so hard not to strike him"
 She said, "You know I love you because you're so much like him"
 And so I'd go sneaking in the evening
 And there she'd stand a crying in the dawn as I was leaving
 The Mayor of Candor lied
 When he offered me his only daughter
 The Mayor of Candor tried
 To take her off across the water
 What a thing to do to a young man in love
 What a thing to do to your daughter
 One day with Father on his tractor and Mother off again
 I go to find the mayor and work out what I can
 But he is not at his office, he is not at his home
 When I find him in the countryside he is not alone
 He's holding a woman and imagine my surprise
 As she jumps back from his arms I look into my mother's eyes
 The Mayor of Candor lied
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 All my thoughts of outrage, embarrassment, and pain
 Were washed away by what then went roaring through my brain
 How the Mayor's at my mercy, and I hear my own voice say
 "Your run for re-election, sir, is one month away
 And the world will never know of what I've seen here, sir
 But I'll be with your daughter is my meaning clear, sir?"
 The Mayor of Candor lied
 When he offered me his only daughter
 The Mayor of Candor tried
 To take her off across the water
 What a thing to do to a young man in love
 And what a thing to do to your daughter
 My mother looks in horror at this compromise we made
 But the Mayor's rueful smile said this piper must be paid
 I had a month of joy in heaven, from this deal I'd made in hell
 What was to happen then my friend a prophet could not tell
 ♪
 The day after his re-election and the victory celebration
 The Mayor takes his family on a month-long foreign vacation
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 "Oh, Coleen, you know how much I love you
 There is no one I'd ever place above you
 Oh, Coleen, you don't even know me
 To have you there's nothing that's below me"
 (But time, but time)
 But time always passes after all
 And as the summer follows spring, so does the winter follow fall
 ♪
 The day that they return, I stand waiting in the road
 I watch the car drive up, I watch the passengers unload
 Of course, she isn't there, of course, I should have known
 The Mayor says that she has stayed, the decision is her own
 He says she's finishing her schooling on that unseen foreign shore
 "And I'll tell you very frankly boy, you'll not see her anymore"
 The Mayor of Candor lied
 When he offered me his only daughter
 The Mayor of Candor tried
 To take her off across the water
 What a thing to do to a young man in love
 And what a thing to do to your daughter
 I spit out my hatred and my fury at his lies
 When he says, "You tried to blackmail me you're just as bad as I
 Go on and do your damnedest boy, throw your mother to the streets
 You know it's been too many years I've had to be discreet"
 And as he stands there saying we're just two of a kind
 It hits me like a thunderbolt, exploding in my mind
 As I look into his leering, aged, wrinkled, mirror of my own face
 He laughs and sneers and says "Of course dear son
 Where do you think you came from in the first place?"
 The Mayor of Candor lied
 When he offered me his only daughter
 The Mayor of Candor tried
 To take her off across the water
 What a thing to do to a young man in love
 And what a thing to do to your daughter