Trick Mirror

Trick Mirror
Album	The Coroner's Gambit
Released	2000
Artist	the Mountain Goats
Length	2:40
Previous Track	"Elijah"
Next Track	"Island Garden Song"

Trick Mirror is the third song on the album The Coroner's Gambit.

Lyrics

Seventeen years ago
They told me to teach him everything I know
I let the fire rain down, rain down
Watched it flare up inside his heart
Saw it tearing him completely apart
Head to toe, I know

And blood will run through the streets of Rome today
And roll across the ocean

Fourteen years ago tonight
Watched him tearing through the garden, killing everything in sight
I let my curiosity get the best of me
I saw the sourceless anger eating at him from inside
No one around him to stem the rising tide
Evil from his head down to his feet
Quinine's bitter
Sugar's sweet

And blood will run through the streets of Rome today
And roll across the ocean

Things Referenced in this Song

• The Annotated Mountain Goats postulates that the song's narrator is the Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger, addressing his pupil Nero.
  • Seneca's essay De Clementia ("On Mercy") addresses Nero and falls into the literary genre of "mirrors for princes", which may explain the title.