Al Stewart - Shah Of Shahs lyrics

After these processions comes the sweeping up The rag and bone possessions, an old tin cup The army trucks have hauled away the newly slain The angry crowd retreats, but they'll be back again And the prisoner in the palace does not understand The ingratitude around him after all he's done and planned But if this the way that it must be then he'll be damned If he will let them take away his perfect dream Ministers stuff bank notes into leather bags Their wives have packed the j**elry and the luggage tanks The word is on the street now, growing day by day And even the informers know the stay away And the prisoner in the palace is appalled by this charade Feeling strangely unprotected by his miles of golden braid And if this is the way that it must be then I'm afraid He will not let them take away his perfect dream And these mountains of equipment brought from foreign lands Are now stacked up in the desert being buried by the sand These rows of helicopters rusting where they stand Are bu*terflies to take away the perfect dream He cried inside the limousine and at the airport too Where the soldier knelt before him and kissed his shoe He flew across the desert and the open sea While they tore down all his statues and his legacy And the victor greets the newsmen with a strange and stoic style They take a hundred thousand pictures and in none of them a smile But this is just the way that it must be now for a while He's only come to bring another perfect dream