Tori Amos - Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout would not take the garbage out.
She'd scour the pots and scrape the pans,
Candy the yams and spice the hams,
And though her Daddy would scream an' shout,
She simply would not take the garbage out.

And so it piled up to the ceilings:
Coffee grounds, potato peelings, brown bananas, rotten peas,
Chunks of sour cottage cheese.
It filled the can, it covered the floor,
It cracked the window an' blocked the door,
With bacon rinds and chicken bones, drippy ends of ice-cream cones,
Prunes pits, peach pits, orange peel, gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal,
Pizza crusts and withered greens, soggy beans an' tangerines,
Crusts of black-burned buttered toast, gristly bits of beefy roasts.
The garbage rolled on down the hall.
It raised the roof. It broke the wall.


Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs, globs of gooey bubble-gum,
Cellophane from green baloney, rubbery blubbery macaroni,
Peanut butter, caked and dry, curdled milk and crusts of pie,
Moldy melons, dried-up mustard, eggshells mixed with lemon custard,
Cold French fries and rancid meat, yellow lumps of 'Cream of Wheat'.
At last the garbage reached so high, it finally touched the sky.


Heh... and all the neighbors moved away,
An' none of her friends would come to play,
And finally, Sarah Cynthia Stout said,
"Okay, I'll take the garbage out."
But then, of course, it was too late-
The garbage reached across the state,
From New York to the Golden Gate,
And there, in the garbage she did hate,
Poor Sarah met an awful fate that I cannot right now relate,
Because the hour is much too late.
But children, remember Sarah Stout,
An' always take the yummy garbage out.
I'm Tori Amos, an' I hope that was a good nighty-night. Hmm...