Harry Chapin – Mayor of Candor Lied lyrics

In the little town of Candor,
In the last day of my youth
I learned a vital lesson
Of the levels due the truth.
My father was a farmer;
He'd go tillin' in the ground.
My mother was a neighbor;
She'd go visitin' 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 sneakin' in the evening.
And there she'd stand a-cryin' in the dawn as I was leavin'...

(Chorus)
The mayor of Cander 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 but what then
went roaring through my brain.
How the mayor's at my mercy
And I hear my own voice say,
"Your run for reelection, 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?

(Chorus)

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
The prophet could not tell...

(Instrumental)

The day after his reelection
and the victory celebration,
The mayor takes his family
on a month-long foreign vacation.

Bridge:
Oh, Colleen
You know how much I love you.
There is no one I'd ever place above you.
Oh, Colleen
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 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.

(Chorus)

I spit out my hatred
And my fury at his lies.
He said, "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'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 learing, aged, wrinkled mirror of my own face.
He laughs, and sneers, and says,
"Of course, dear son;
where did you think you came from
In the first place?

(Chorus)