Lyrics to
Mystery Dance

This version of Mystery Dance was released by Elvis Costello in 1977.

Our About Elvis Costello page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Mystery Dance from 1977 as well as all of the other lyrics from Elvis Costello that we have in our lyrics database.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to Elvis Costello or about the 1970s in general.

Romeo was restless, he was ready to kill.
He jumped out the window cause he couldn’t sit still.
Juliet was waiting with a safety net.
He said “Don’t bury me cause I’m not dead yet”.

Why don’t you tell me ’bout the mystery dance.
I wanna know about the mystery dance.
Why don’t you show me,
’cause I’ve tried and I’ve tried,
and I’m still mystified.
I can’t do it anymore and I’m not satisfied.
I can’t do it anymore and I’m not satisfied.

Well I remember when the lights went out
and I was tryin’ to make it look like it was never in doubt.
She thought that I knew, and I thought that she knew,
so both of us were willing, but we didn’t know how to do it.

Well I was down under the covers in the middle of the night,
tryin’ to discover my left foot from my right.
You can see those pictures in any magazine.
But what’s the use of looking when you don’t know what they mean.

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Elvis Costello has released many songs over the years besides Mystery Dance. Elvis Costello released songs from 1977 to 2004 spanning across albums like My Aim Is True, This Year's Model, Armed Forces, Get Happy!!, Trust, Almost Blue, Imperial Bedroom, Punch The Clock, Goodbye Cruel World, Blood And Chocolate, King Of America, Spike, Mighty Like A Rose, The Juliet Letters, Brutal Youth, Kojak Variety, Deep Dead Blue, All This Useless Beauty, Painted From Memory, For The Stars, When I Was Cruel, North, and The Delivery Man. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Elvis Costello.

If you're a fan of lyrics from 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1977 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Mystery Dance by Elvis Costello

When you decide to study the lyrics to Mystery Dance, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1977 song by Elvis Costello. Some of the lyrics to Mystery Dance have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only Elvis Costello and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to Mystery Dance if you take apart the structure of the words. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Mystery Dance" means the words set to the music of Mystery Dance, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Elvis Costello. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Mystery Dance and the lyrics to Mystery Dance are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Elvis Costello who came here looking just for the lyrics to Mystery Dance, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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