Harry Chapin - The Mayor of Candor Lied lyrics

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
And 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 to 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!

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

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 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 damndest, boy
Throw your mother to the streets! You know
It's been too many years I
Had to be discreet"

And as he stands there saying we're
Just two of a kind
It hit's 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