Larger Than Life

Uncle Morty used to send me to the movies
 "Here's a nickel, kid, cheer up and go"
 And though I was only seven
 I discovered heaven
 At the R.K.O.
 Blue lights, pink lights
 Stars in the ceiling
 An organ as big as a Buick
 And a screen as tall as the Great Wall of China
 Red rugs, gold stairs
 Porcelain angels
 And everything bigger, and better
 And larger than life!
 At first I was strictly a Western man
 But then, one Saturday afternoon
 I saw "Defender of the Crown"
 Warner Brothers, 1941, Technicolor
 Starring Alan Swann
 Daring, loyal
 Kind but courageous
 A hero as big as a Buick
 With a cape, a sword, and a bevy of maidens
 He was movies
 Me, I was seven
 And gee, he was bigger, and better
 And larger than life!
 See, life wasn't capes, and flashing swords
 And parapets
 Life wasn't Alan Swann or Robin Hood
 Life was your father going out for cigarettes
 And deciding he was going out for good
 "Here's a nickel, kid"
 "Cheer up and go"
 Swann is playing at the R.K.O.
 "With the morning sun at our backs, we will this day
 Write history, with our swords and our honor
 Now, let us not dally
 For I have this day
 An engagement to mount the crown of England"
 This sort of talk just doesn't come up in normal conversation
 ♪
 Sure, it was possible!
 If he met my mom in '34
 Maybe had a fling with her in his cabana at the Chateau Marmont
 Well, there was every reason to believe
 There could be the remote possibility that the man who went out for the Chesterfields
 Wasn't my real father at all
 I wasn't some stupid kid whose father got tired of him and walked out
 I was the bastard son of Alan Swann!
 Daring, loyal
 Kind but courageous
 A hero as big as I needed
 In the Technicolor embrace of a maiden
 Swann, my hero
 And possible father
 He stood, and he fought, and he never ran
 Oh no
 He was bigger, and better, and larger than life
 And he lived for me
 At the R.K.O.