The Decemberists - My Mother Was a Chinese Trapese Artist lyrics

My mother was a Chinese trapeze
Artist in pre-war Paris
Smuggling bombs for the underground
And she met my father at
A fete in Aix-en-Provence
He was disguised as a Russian cadet
In the employ of the Axis

And there in the half-light
Of the provincial midnight
To a lone concertina, they drank in cantinas
And toasted to Edith Piaf
And the fall of the Reich

My sister was born in a hovel in
Burgundy and left for the cattle
But later was found by a communist
Who'd deserted his ranks to follow his dream
To start up a punk rock
Band in South Carolina

I get letters sometimes
They bought a plantation
She weeds the tobacco, he offends the nation
And they write, "Don't be a stranger
Y'hear?" "Sincerely, your sister"

So my parents had me, to
The disgust of the prostitutes
On a bed in a brothel
Surprisingly raised with tender care
'Til the money got tight and they bet me away
To a blind brigadier in a
Game of high stakes canasta

But he made me a sailor
On his brigadier ship fleet
I know every yardarm from main
Mast to jib sheet
But sometimes I long to be landlocked
And to work in a bakery