Poor Emma
She never had a chance
Longing to live in town and dance
A polka every night
She knew it wasn’t right
Poor little woman
Gasping for love
Like a carp on a kitchen table
She wanted a lover
Who knew how to play
On her weakness for words sentimental

Just what was making her unhappy
Where was the enormous calamity
When you’re a woman you make your own bed
And you lie in it lie in it up to the day that you’re dead

Poor Emma
Dressed with no place to go
She could run away but even so
There’s no other life
She’s always a wife
Bored little woman
Pining for pleasure
She wonders why she ever married him
She buys fancy things
And she changes her hair
She decides she will take up Italian

But nothing gives her satisfaction
She wants to feel drunken with passion
When you’re a woman you make your own bed
And you lie in it lie in it up to the day that you’re dead

She tries to transcend
The monotonous days
With the dedication of an addict
There is no escape
From her dreary fate
But the drug of adulterous habits

Poor Emma
Wasted on country life
The velvet she covets cuts like a knife
She’ll beggar herself
She’ll squander her health
Poor bitter woman
No one will save her
She’s gone beyond any man’s power
Her almond-shaped nails
And her dove-colored silk
And her mouth full of arsenic powder

What was it that was always missing
Maybe if she had to earn a living
When you’re a woman you make your own bed
And you lie in it lie in it up to the day that

What was it that was always missing
Maybe if she had to earn a living
But nothing gives her satisfaction
She wants to feel drunken with passion
Just what was making her unhappy
Where was the enormous calamity