Fiery Furnaces - Rehearsing My Choir lyrics

But there was one other man with whom i didn't get along The bishop Would head down, head down to deerport station To see what stars on the silver screen might be seen Or broadway stage were all the rage With his black leather autograph book And his black leather pastoral pumps And his pressed black robes And his tidy black beard of which he was so proud And his hat that stuck out in a crowd But there he'd sit At his table at the edgewater hotel Wearing his ecclesiastical furs And lunching with two giggly and none too healthy looking young men And in his shirt pocket up close to his heart was his autographed picture of robert mitchum Which he no doubt used in an impure way And i was at home rehearsing my choir On christmas day In the afternoon I got a call at home The bishop was on the phone Wanting the choir to go and sing On some channel 44 thing And i said "out of the question! The rest of the day is for their families!" And the bishop became furious All that time singing western music Christmas carols, backsliding And no time to represent the diocese But of course he was just upset because he wanted to be on the show And he hated women And i knew he was angry with me But i couldn't worry about it I went about my business Rehearsing my choir Rehearsing my choir (da da da da da da da) Again! (da da da da da da da) Ugh, altos, out of tune! (da da da da da da da) That's not good! (da da da da da da da) That sounds horrible Next sunday was my late sister's namesday La la la And the bishop was coming that day to our church to deliver a sermon Which would give me quite a big surprise "Decadence in the church! Betrayal of our traditions! Look up in the shoir loft, for instance, the lady in red Eva! I ban her from receiving communion And remove her as choir director!" I couldn't believe my ears And the congregation couldn't believe theirs And my husband was furious when he was told, as he wasn't there at the time And letters were written and phone calls were placed And the matter was taken up, and i was granted an audience And i sat there nervous and frightened When into the room Stepped his eminence The archbishop They had a strange deliberating process at his initiative As it was his prerogative alone But the hierarch with the tallest hat and longest beard would stand in the middle And the prelates with shorter hats and beards radiated out With the archbishop in front of them And then they began to intone And i was left on the other side of the door, alone And when they came out, bishop nikolaki was sent to San Jose