What Mary Noticed - The Manna Sustains song no. III

Our Epic Murder Ballad Song Cycle, The Manna Sustains, continues with song no. III, "What Mary Noticed." Here's us singing it on youtube:


What Mary Noticed, Song no. III of The Manna Tease's Epic Murder Ballad Song Cycle, The Manna Sustains!

...wherein Pink Mary, a 12-year-old girl who lives in the sewers, observes secretly the goings on in Arkansas City, including the machinations of Miss Masha, the mayor's mistress. Mary sees her purchasing Rohypnol from a contrabassoon-playing dwarf and surreptitiousness poisoning Young Manasseh & the Deputy Sheriff, Maple Seraph, who are having a lusty romance. That same chilly evening, the mayor mysteriously kicks the bucket, & Miss Masha succeeds him.

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The first two songs, Young Manasseh's Stains & On the trail of Young Manasseh, were posted on this blog here. More of The Manna Sustains on itwaslost.

Lyrics:

What Mary Noticed


As black as a galactic eclipse,
And as reactionary as a reactionist,
Is Pink Mary’s filthy face.
She thinks that it’s pretty neat
To live beneath the city street.
And she sees things from her secret space.


She noticed the Mayor of Arkansas City
Leave the City Hall at about 11:30,
With a woman who was not his wife.
The girl tripped over a napping vagrant,
Who was wafting nasty odors flatulently fragrant,
And out of her satchel fell a small switchblade knife.


The police would love to see what
Mary sees, but unfortunately,
She lives beneath their toes.
She wears a fleece to shield her
From the breeze, she fears that she will freeze.
As the sewer urchins know:
She’s already lost her nose.


The next afternoon outside an underground saloon,
Mary noticed a dwarf with a contrabassoon
Selling flunitrazepam to the Mayor’s mistress.
Then she saw the vagrant & a female officer,
Stumbling arm-in-arm down a dark corridor,
As he fumbled with the straps on her dress.


Mary saw the Mayor’s mistress see the strange pair,
And she watched them in the alley strip into their underwear.
And she slyly slipped on a skier’s mask.
The mistress crept up to the fornicating couple,
As invisible as a heaping rubble of trouble.
And she slipped the rufies into the vagrant’s flask.


The police would love to see what, &c...


That night it was pretty windy,
There was a cold draught slamming shutters all over the city,
And Pink Mary bundled up in her fleece.
In the morning, outside the Mayor’s mansion,
Cops & ambulances clustered neath the Kansas sun.
The Mayor was stone dead… with no sign of disease.


The dwarf took out his contrabassoon,
And played a sorrowful tune to the midwinter moon,
And Mary wept.
She noticed the vagrant & his lover flee town,
And the mistress put on her head the Mayor’s crown,
And Mary snatched the switchblade… from off of the City Hall steps.


The contra-bassoon played: baaah bah bah bah, &c...


©2011 The Manna Tease
"What Mary Noticed" incorporates the traditional folk tune "Sacred Throne," by Hugh Wilson (1800), (public domain.)

UPDATE: How about an illustrated songbook version of this song?

What Mary Mary Noticed, from The Manna Sustains - Illuminated Sheet Music

The Manna Sustains
An Epic Murder-Ballad Song-Cycle
by the Manna Tease


And the Lord said, I brought you into this world, and I can take you out. -Exodus 16.37


Prelude. The Wind & the Rain
Song no. I. Young Manasseh's Stains
Song no. II. On the Trail of Young Manasseh
Song no. III. What Mary Noticed
Song no. IV. First Vision of St Olaf
First Interlude. The Wind & Snow
Song no. V. Wha' Happened in Oaxaca
Song no. VIa. Who are you, Elle Mary?
Song no. VIb. Second Vision of St Olaf
Song no. VII. Pink Mary's Stains
Song no. VIIIa. Banks of Pontchartrain
Song no. VIIIb. Young Manasseh Complains
Second Interlude. The Wind & Mud
Song no. IXa. Arkansas City
Song no. IXb. On the Trail of Pink Mary
Song no. X. Pink Mary's Marriage
Song no. XIa. Chase Scene / The Spatula / Pink Mary's Death
Song no. XIb. The Manna Sustains
Song no. XIc. Pink Mary's Resurrection / Wha' Happened in Oklahoma / Who Are You, Elle Mary? (Reprise)
Song no. XII. Young Manasseh Remains
Hymn. Sacred Throne
Palinode. And I Will No Longer Smoke My Hubbly-Bubbly Solitarily