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    100 Songs

    Page 5
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      Like a camel and then you frown

      You put your eyes in your pocket

      And your nose on the ground

      There ought to be a law

      Against you comin’ around

      You should be made

      To wear earphones

      Because something is happening here

      But you don’t know what it is

      Do you, Mister Jones?

      HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED

      Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”

      Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”

      God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”

      God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but

      The next time you see me comin’ you better run”

      Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”

      God says, “Out on Highway 61”

      Well Georgia Sam he had a bloody nose

      Welfare Department they wouldn’t give him no clothes

      He asked poor Howard where can I go

      Howard said there’s only one place I know

      Sam said tell me quick man I got to run

      Ol’ Howard just pointed with his gun

      And said that way down on Highway 61

      Well Mack the Finger said to Louie the King

      I got forty red white and blue shoestrings

      And a thousand telephones that don’t ring

      Do you know where I can get rid of these things

      And Louie the King said let me think for a minute son

      And he said yes I think it can be easily done

      Just take everything down to Highway 61

      Now the fifth daughter on the twelfth night

      Told the first father that things weren’t right

      My complexion she said is much too white

      He said come here and step into the light he says hmm you’re right

      Let me tell the second mother this has been done

      But the second mother was with the seventh son

      And they were both out on Highway 61

      Now the rovin’ gambler he was very bored

      He was tryin’ to create a next world war

      He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor

      He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before

      But yes I think it can be very easily done

      We’ll just put some bleachers out in the sun

      And have it on Highway 61

      JUST LIKE TOM THUMB’S BLUES

      When you’re lost in the rain in Juarez

      And it’s Eastertime too

      And your gravity fails

      And negativity don’t pull you through

      Don’t put on any airs

      When you’re down on Rue Morgue Avenue

      They got some hungry women there

      And they really make a mess outa you

      Now if you see Saint Annie

      Please tell her thanks a lot

      I cannot move

      My fingers are all in a knot

      I don’t have the strength

      To get up and take another shot

      And my best friend, my doctor

      Won’t even say what it is I’ve got

      Sweet Melinda

      The peasants call her the goddess of gloom

      She speaks good English

      And she invites you up into her room

      And you’re so kind

      And careful not to go to her too soon

      And she takes your voice

      And leaves you howling at the moon

      Up on Housing Project Hill

      It’s either fortune or fame

      You must pick up one or the other

      Though neither of them are to be what they claim

      If you’re lookin’ to get silly

      You better go back to from where you came

      Because the cops don’t need you

      And man they expect the same

      Now all the authorities

      They just stand around and boast

      How they blackmailed the sergeant-at-arms

      Into leaving his post

      And picking up Angel who

      Just arrived here from the coast

      Who looked so fine at first

      But left looking just like a ghost

      I started out on burgundy

      But soon hit the harder stuff

      Everybody said they’d stand behind me

      When the game got rough

      But the joke was on me

      There was nobody even there to call my bluff

      I’m going back to New York City

      I do believe I’ve had enough

      DESOLATION ROW

      They’re selling postcards of the hanging

      They’re painting the passports brown

      The beauty parlor is filled with sailors

      The circus is in town

      Here comes the blind commissioner

      They’ve got him in a trance

      One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker

      The other is in his pants

      And the riot squad they’re restless

      They need somewhere to go

      As Lady and I look out tonight

      From Desolation Row

      Cinderella, she seems so easy

      “It takes one to know one,” she smiles

      And puts her hands in her back pockets

      Bette Davis style

      And in comes Romeo, he’s moaning

      “You Belong to Me I Believe”

      And someone says, “You’re in the wrong place my friend

      You better leave”

      And the only sound that’s left

      After the ambulances go

      Is Cinderella sweeping up

      On Desolation Row

      Now the moon is almost hidden

      The stars are beginning to hide

      The fortune-telling lady

      Has even taken all her things inside

      All except for Cain and Abel

      And the hunchback of Notre Dame

      Everybody is making love

      Or else expecting rain

      And the Good Samaritan, he’s dressing

      He’s getting ready for the show

      He’s going to the carnival tonight

      On Desolation Row

      Now Ophelia, she’s ’neath the window

      For her I feel so afraid

      On her twenty-second birthday

      She already is an old maid

      To her, death is quite romantic

      She wears an iron vest

      Her profession’s her religion

      Her sin is her lifelessness

      And though her eyes are fixed upon

      Noah’s great rainbow

      She spends her time peeking

      Into Desolation Row

      Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood

      With his memories in a trunk

      Passed this way an hour ago

      With his friend, a jealous monk

      He looked so immaculately frightful

      As he bummed a cigarette

      Then he went off sniffing drainpipes

      And reciting the alphabet

      Now you would not think to look at him

      But he was famous long ago

      For playing the electric violin

      On Desolation Row

      Dr. Filth, he keeps his world

      Inside of a leather cup

      But all his sexless patients

      They’re trying to blow it up

      Now his nurse, some local loser

      She’s in charge of the cyanide hole

      And she also keeps the cards that read

      “Have Mercy on His Soul”

      They all play on pennywhistles

      You can hear them blow

      If you lean your head out far enough

      From Desolation Row

      Across the street they’ve nailed the curtains

      They’re getting ready for the feast

      The Phantom of the Opera

      A
    perfect image of a priest

      They’re spoonfeeding Casanova

      To get him to feel more assured

      Then they’ll kill him with self-confidence

      After poisoning him with words

      And the Phantom’s shouting to skinny girls

      “Get Outa Here If You Don’t Know

      Casanova is just being punished for going

      To Desolation Row”

      Now at midnight all the agents

      And the superhuman crew

      Come out and round up everyone

      That knows more than they do

      Then they bring them to the factory

      Where the heart-attack machine

      Is strapped across their shoulders

      And then the kerosene

      Is brought down from the castles

      By insurance men who go

      Check to see that nobody is escaping

      To Desolation Row

      Praise be to Nero’s Neptune

      The Titanic sails at dawn

      And everybody’s shouting

      “Which Side Are You On?”

      And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot

      Fighting in the captain’s tower

      While calypso singers laugh at them

      And fishermen hold flowers

      Between the windows of the sea

      Where lovely mermaids flow

      And nobody has to think too much

      About Desolation Row

      Yes, I received your letter yesterday

      (About the time the doorknob broke)

      When you asked how I was doing

      Was that some kind of joke?

      All these people that you mention

      Yes, I know them, they’re quite lame

      I had to rearrange their faces

      And give them all another name

      Right now I can’t read too good

      Don’t send me no more letters no

      Not unless you mail them

      From Desolation Row

      POSITIVELY 4TH STREET

      You got a lotta nerve

      To say you are my friend

      When I was down

      You just stood there grinning

      You got a lotta nerve

      To say you got a helping hand to lend

      You just want to be on

      The side that’s winning

      You say I let you down

      You know it’s not like that

      If you’re so hurt

      Why then don’t you show it

      You say you lost your faith

      But that’s not where it’s at

      You had no faith to lose

      And you know it

      I know the reason

      That you talk behind my back

      I used to be among the crowd

      You’re in with

      Do you take me for such a fool

      To think I’d make contact

      With the one who tries to hide

      What he don’t know to begin with

      You see me on the street

      You always act surprised

      You say, “How are you?” “Good luck”

      But you don’t mean it

      When you know as well as me

      You’d rather see me paralyzed

      Why don’t you just come out once

      And scream it

      No, I do not feel that good

      When I see the heartbreaks you embrace

      If I was a master thief

      Perhaps I’d rob them

      And now I know you’re dissatisfied

      With your position and your place

      Don’t you understand

      It’s not my problem

      I wish that for just one time

      You could stand inside my shoes

      And just for that one moment

      I could be you

      Yes, I wish that for just one time

      You could stand inside my shoes

      You’d know what a drag it is

      To see you

      VISIONS OF JOHANNA

      Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re trying to be so quiet?

      We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it

      And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin’ you to defy it

      Lights flicker from the opposite loft

      In this room the heat pipes just cough

      The country music station plays soft

      But there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off

      Just Louise and her lover so entwined

      And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind

      In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman’s bluff with the key chain

      And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the “D” train

      We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight

      Ask himself if it’s him or them that’s really insane

      Louise, she’s all right, she’s just near

      She’s delicate and seems like the mirror

      But she just makes it all too concise and too clear

      That Johanna’s not here

      The ghost of ’lectricity howls in the bones of her face

      Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place

      Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously

      He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously

      And when bringing her name up

      He speaks of a farewell kiss to me

      He’s sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all

      Muttering small talk at the wall while I’m in the hall

      How can I explain?

      Oh, it’s so hard to get on

      And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn

      Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial

      Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while

      But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues

      You can tell by the way she smiles

      See the primitive wallflower freeze

      When the jelly-faced women all sneeze

      Hear the one with the mustache say, “Jeeze

      I can’t find my knees”

      Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule

      But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel

      The peddler now speaks to the countess who’s pretending to care for him

      Sayin’, “Name me someone that’s not a parasite and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him”

      But like Louise always says

      “Ya can’t look at much, can ya man?”

      As she, herself, prepares for him

      And Madonna, she still has not showed

      We see this empty cage now corrode

      Where her cape of the stage once had flowed

      The fiddler, he now steps to the road

      He writes ev’rything’s been returned which was owed

      On the back of the fish truck that loads

      While my conscience explodes

      The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain

      And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain

      I WANT YOU

      The guilty undertaker sighs

      The lonesome organ grinder cries

      The silver saxophones say I should refuse you

      The cracked bells and washed-out horns

      Blow into my face with scorn

      But it’s not that way

      I wasn’t born to lose you

      I want you, I want you

      I want you so bad

      Honey, I want you

      The drunken politician leaps

      Upon the street where mothers weep

      And the saviors who are fast asleep, they wait for you

      And I wait for them to interrupt

      Me drinkin’ from my broken cup

      And ask me to

      Open up the gate for you

      I want you, I want you

      I want you so bad

      Honey, I want you


      How all my fathers, they’ve gone down

      True love they’ve been without it

      But all their daughters put me down

      ’Cause I don’t think about it

      Well, I return to the Queen of Spades

      And talk with my chambermaid

      She knows that I’m not afraid to look at her

      She is good to me

      And there’s nothing she doesn’t see

      She knows where I’d like to be

      But it doesn’t matter

      I want you, I want you

      I want you so bad

      Honey, I want you

      Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit

      He spoke to me, I took his flute

      No, I wasn’t very cute to him, was I?

      But I did it, though, because he lied

      Because he took you for a ride

      And because time was on his side

      And because I . . .

      I want you, I want you

      I want you so bad

      Honey, I want you

      STUCK INSIDE OF MOBILE WITH THE MEMPHIS BLUES AGAIN

      Oh, the ragman draws circles

      Up and down the block

      I’d ask him what the matter was

      But I know that he don’t talk

      And the ladies treat me kindly

      And furnish me with tape

      But deep inside my heart

      I know I can’t escape

      Oh, Mama, can this really be the end

      To be stuck inside of Mobile

      With the Memphis blues again

      Well, Shakespeare, he’s in the alley

      With his pointed shoes and his bells

      Speaking to some French girl

      Who says she knows me well

      And I would send a message

      To find out if she’s talked

      But the post office has been stolen

      And the mailbox is locked

      Oh, Mama, can this really be the end

      To be stuck inside of Mobile

      With the Memphis blues again

      Mona tried to tell me

      To stay away from the train line

      She said that all the railroad men

      Just drink up your blood like wine

      An’ I said, “Oh, I didn’t know that

      But then again, there’s only one I’ve met

      An’ he just smoked my eyelids

      An’ punched my cigarette”

      Oh, Mama, can this really be the end

      To be stuck inside of Mobile

      With the Memphis blues again

      Grandpa died last week

      And now he’s buried in the rocks

      But everybody still talks about

      How badly they were shocked

      But me, I expected it to happen

      I knew he’d lost control

      When he built a fire on Main Street

      And shot it full of holes

      Oh, Mama, can this really be the end

     


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