Some 25 years after the release of this album, in his own words:
“Dedicated to the women who did and did not requite, and those still might,” said the Circus Maximus sleevenotes. This song began as a tribute to a “Helen of Troy” (the lyric was much more specifically about her before a rewrite: “an...
You can never overestimate Garbo
You can never undress Monroe
They may have never heard of Plato
But there's one thing they did know
If you want to be desired for a thousand years
Keeping it platonic is a good idea
"Cut it out Socrates, can't we just talk"
Scissors cut paper, but paper wraps rock
Never underestimate Mary
The original virginal bride
Interpretations may vary but I say
God was her piece on the side
Prudence is the proper doxy's friend
The paradox is heaven sent
The wickedest words are in the Good Book
Scissors cut paper, but paper wraps rock
Never underestimate the face of Helen of Troy
The face of a woman who never agrees to please
She's Paris in a drag of plaster and papyrus
That's why they never undress, they never undress
They never undress in this non-stop striptease
Never underestimate the huntress
The protected species of whore
The chariot of Diana Regina's an enormous
Limousine with bulletproof doors
It's rule number one for the wise coquette
Stick a long filter on your cigarette
Shimmer through a window that's twice locked
Scissors cut paper, oh, but paper wraps rock
Never underestimate the face of Helen of Troy
The face of a woman who never agrees to please
She's Paris in a drag of plaster and papyrus
That's why they never undress, they never undress
They never undress in this non-stop striptease
Never underestimate 'Never'
And you'll live to love another day
A woman never made a living
By giving anything away
If you want to be more major than a majorette
Stay as rigid and as frigid as a statuette
Stay out of the kitchens and the sweatshops
Scissors cut paper, but paper wraps rock
Undress your best behaviour Helen of Troy
Every Green Bus Drives Fast and so does time
Brush off the plaster of Paris
Every Good Boy, Every Good Boy
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, where's mine?
She will forget you in all except your name
In all except the face you wore
And the empty words you were good at saying
Or else all except the pretentious knots
That covered the paper
That wrapped up rock
Paper Wraps Rock was written by Nick Currie.
Paper Wraps Rock was produced by Momus.
In the sleeve notes to his 2016 compilation album Pubic Intellectual Momus said about the track:
The record would be Brechtian, and obliquely Marxist; it would be about how soft power, in the form of culture and entertainment, is hard power’s facilitator and lubricant…about sex used as a currency w...