Handsome Family Woodpecker Lyrics

Lovely Mary Sweeney, the famous window smasher
Was just a quiet school marm from Lacrosse, Wisconsin
She took a pinch of cocaine but only for her nerves
Laudanum for trembling hands, a little bottle in her purse
She was a woodpecker, she couldn't help but see
All the things that hide inside all the pretty trees

At dusk she took a train, just a hammer in her bag
She went from town to town, smashing every pane of glass
Storefronts, mirrors, windshields shattered in the night
A hammer through a window's gleam filled the air with light She was a woodpecker, she couldn't help but free
All the things that hide inside all the pretty trees

In the state asylum, the windows caged in bars
They soaked her in an ice-cold bath till she was seeing stars
Wrapped up in her straitjacket her mind still hammered on
Till the glass inside her smashed and she flew off into the trees
She was a woodpecker, she couldn't help but see
All the things that hide inside all the pretty trees