The Manna Tease - Arkansas City - The Manna Sustains Song No. IXa
Channel: S. Sandrigon
Date: 07/07/2012

Arkansas City, Song no. IXa of The Manna Tease's Epic Murder Ballad Song Cycle, The Manna Sustains!

...wherein our hero, Special Agent Francis, goes to Arkansas City and finds it unglamorous. He meets Police Detective Pete Ditty, who has been investigating the murder of the town's mayor. Ditty had heard a contrabassoon-playing dwarf sing the song "Young Manasseh's Stains." But when he interrogated the short minstrel, he was advised to seek Pink Mary, currently being held against her will at the Kaw Lake Compound.

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Lyrics:

Special Agent Francis came to Arkansas City
 On the 8:30 train.
The head police detective there was named Pete Ditty,
 Who met him out in the rain.

  Arkansas City, your billboards are rusty. 
  Your neon is burnt-out,
  Your archives are dusty & bereaved,
  Your churches devout
  To a god you must see to believe.

Mayor Seraph murdered on a brisk night last December,
 The case was growing stale,
Detective Ditty couldn't find a soul who could remember
 Anything useful at all.

But then by chance he happened in a nightclub underground,
 (Intending to get plastered.)
There a dwarf who played some sort of twisty black saxophone,
 Sang a ballad about Young Manasser.

  Young Manasser, so the song inferred,
  Had gone on a bender, violating parole,
  The night that the mayor was mysteriously murdered, 
  Then he disappeared with Sheriff Maple.

Afterword, Pete Ditty cornered the dwarf in the stage wing,
 Who said, there exists more twists.
He said there was a gutter girl who'd seen the whole strange thing,
 But she'd been kidnapped by polygamists.

  Arkansas City, your billboards are rusty. 
  Your neon is burnt-out,
  Your archives are dusty & bereaved,
  Your churches devout
  To a god you must see to believe.

  Arkansas City, your storefronts are sleepy,
  Your womens have small bosoms,
  Your old men are creepy & lurking.
  Your politics is curdling with nepotisms,
  Your potholes are bursting paroxysms
  But your music, sweet music has plenty of rhythms!


The Manna Sustains
An Epic Murder-Ballad Song-Cycle
by the Manna Tease

And the Lord said, I brought you into this world, and I can take you out. -Exodus 16.37

Prelude. The Wind & the Rain
Song no. I. Young Manasseh's Stains - http://youtu.be/xPb47CVTbv0
Song no. II. On the Trail of Young Manasseh - http://youtu.be/b-yKRxDAAHs
Song no. III. What Mary Noticed - http://youtu.be/EIUcurs5pFI
Song no. IV. First Vision of St Olaf - http://youtu.be/dJj2FnYUNDs
First Interlude. The Wind & Snow - http://youtu.be/U1WyIJd567M
Song no. V. Wha' Happened in Oaxaca
Song no. VIa. Who are you, Elle Mary?
Song no. VIb. Second Vision of St Olaf
Song no. VII. Pink Mary's Stains - http://youtu.be/r2j6HfaYKu0
Song no. VIIIa. Banks of Pontchartrain
Song no. VIIIb. Young Manasseh Complains
Second Interlude. The Wind & Mud
Song no. IXa. Arkansas City - http://youtu.be/F1EvhvqMozo
Song no. IXb. On the Trail of Pink Mary
Song no. X. Pink Mary's Marriage
Song no. XIa. Chase Scene / The Spatula / Pink Mary's Death
Song no. XIb. The Manna Sustains
Song no. XIc. Pink Mary's Resurrection / Wha' Happened in Oklahoma / Who Are You, Elle Mary? (Reprise)
Song no. XII. Young Manasseh Remains
Hymn. Sacred Throne
Palinode. And I Will No Longer Smoke My Hubbly-Bubbly Solitarily