Foreign Affairs

Muriel since you left town the clubs closed down
And there's one more burned out lamppost down on the main street
Down where we used to stroll
And muriel i still hit all the same old haunts
And you follow me wherever i go
And muriel i see you on a saturday night
In a penny arcade with your hair tied back
And the diamond twinkle in your eye
Is the only wedding ring i'll buy you
Muriel
And muriel how many times i've left this town
To hide from your memory
And it haunts me
But i only get as far as the next whiskey bar
I buy another cheap cigar and i'll see you every night
Hey muriel muriel
Hey buddy got a light

When travelling abroad in the continental style
It's my belief one must attempt to be discreet
And subsequently bear in mind your transient position
Allows you a perspective that's unique
Though you'll find your itinerary's a blessing and a curse
Your wanderlust won't let you settle down
And you'll wonder how you ever fathomed that you'd be content
To stay within the city limits of a small midwestern town
Most vagabonds i knowed don't ever want to find the culprit
That remains the object of their long relentless quest
The obsession's in the chasing and not the apprehending
The pursuit you see and never the arrest
Without fear of contradiction bon voyage is always hollered
In conjunction with a handkerchief from shore
By a girl that drives a rambler and furthermore
Is overly concerned that she won't see him anymore
Planes and trains and boats and buses
Characteristically evoke a common attitude of blue
Unless you have a suitcase and a ticket and a passport
And the cargo that they're carrying is you
A foreign affair juxtaposed with a stateside
And domestically approved romantic fancy
Is mysteriously attractive due to circumstances knowing
It will only be parlayed into a memory

Licorice tattoo turned a gun metal blue scrawled across the shoulders
Of a dying town the one eyed jacks across the railroad tracks
And the scar on its belly pulled a stranger passing through
He was a juvenile delinquent never learned how to behave
But the cops would never think to look in
Burma shave
And the road was like a ribbon and the moon was like a bone
He didn't seem to be like any guy she'd ever known
He kinda looked like farley granger with his hair slicked back
She says i'm a sucker for a fella in a cowboy hat
How far are you going he said depends on what you mean
He says i'm going thataway just as long as it's paved
I guess you'd say i'm on my way to
Burma shave

And her knees up on the glove compartment
Took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer
And she popped her gum and arched her back
Hell marysville ain't nothing but a wide spot in the road
Some night my heart pounds just like thunder
I don't know why it don't explode
Cause everyone in this stinking town has got one foot in the grave
And i'd rather take my chances out in
Burma shave

Presley's what i go by why don't you change the station
Count the grain elevators in the rearview mirror
Mister anywhere you point this thing
Has got to beat the hell out of the sting
Of going to bed with every dream that dies here every mornin
And so drill me a hole with a barber pole
I'm jumping my parole just like a fugitive tonight
Why don't you have another swig
And pass that car if you're so brave
I wanna get there before the sun comes up in
Burma shave

And the spider web crack and the mustang screamed
Smoke from the tires and the twisted machine
Just a nickel's worth of dreams and every wishbone that they saved
Lie swindled from them on the way to
Burma shave

And the sun hit the derrick and cast a bat wing shadow
Up against the car door on the shot gun side
And when they pulled her from the wreck you know she
Still had on her shades
They say that dreams are growing wild just this side of
Burma shave

(california, here i come by joseph meyer, al jolson and buddy g. de sylva)


Jack was sittin poker faced with bullets backed with bitches
Neal hunched at the wheel puttin everyone in stitches
Braggin bout this nurse he screwed while drivin through nebraska
And when she came she honked the horn and neal just barely missed a
Truck and then he asked her if she'd like to come like that to californy
See a red head in a uniform will always get you horny
With her hairnet and those white shoes and a name tag and a hat
She drove like andy granatelli and knew how to fix a flat
And jack was almost at the bottom of his md 2020 neal was yellin
Out the window tryin to buy some bennies from a lincoln
Full of mexicans whose left rear tire blowed and the sonsobitches
Prit near almost ran off the road

Well the nurse had spilled the manoshevitz all up and down her dress
Then she lit the map on fire neal just had to guess
Should we try and find a bootleg route or a fillin station open
The nurse was dumpin out her purse lookin for an envelope and
Jack was out of cigarettes we crossed the yellow line
The gas pumps looked like tombstones from here
Felt lonelier than a parking lot when the last car pulls away
And the moonlight dressed the double breasted foothills
In the mirror weaving outa negligee and a black brassiere
The mercury was runnin hot and almost out of gas
Just then florence nightingale dropped her drawers and
Stuck her fat ass half way out of the window with a
Wilson pickett tune
And shouted get a load of this and gave the finger to the moon

Countin one eyed jacks and whistling dixie in the car
Neal was doin least a hundred when we saw a fallin star
Florence wished that neal would hold her stead of chewin
His cigar jack was noddin out and dreamin he was in a bar
With charlie parker on the bandstand not a worry in the world
And a glass of beer in one hand and his arm around a girl
And neal was singin to the nurse
Underneath a harlem moon
And somehow you could just tell we'd be in california soon

Well you can buy me a drink and i'll tell you what i seen
And i'll give you a bargain from the edge of a maniac's dream
That buys a black widow spider with a riddle in his yarn
That's clinging to the furrow of a blindman's brow
I'll start talking from the brim of a thimble full of whiskey
On a train through the bronx that will take you just as far
As the empty of a bottle to the highway of a scar
That stretched across the blacktop of my cheek like that
And then ducks beneath the brim of a fugitive's hat
And you'll learn why liquor makes a stool pigeon rat on every face
That ever left his shadow down on saint marks place
Hell i'd double cross my mother if it was whiskey that they payed
And so an early bird says nightsticks on the hit parade
And he ain't got a prayer and his days are numbered
And you'll track him down like a dog
Well it's a tough customer you're getting in this trade
Cause the nightstick's heart pumps lemonade
Well whiskey keeps a blindman talkin alright
And i'm the only one who knows just where he stayed last night

He was in a wreckin yard in a switchblade storm
In a wheelbarrow with nothing but revenge to keep him warm
And a half a million dollars in unmarked bills
Was the nightstick's blanket in a febuary chill
And as the buzzard drove a crooked sky
He was dealin high chicago in the mud
And stackin' the deck against a dragnet's eye
A shivering nightstick in a miserable heap
With the siren for a lullaby singing him to sleep
He was bleeding from a buttonhole
Torn by a slug fired from the barrel of a two dollar gun
That scorched a blister on the grip of a punk by now
Is learnin what you have to pay to be a hero anyhow

He dressed the hole in his gut with a hundred dollar bandage
A king's ransom for a bedspread that don't amount to nuttin
Just cobweb strings on a busted ukulele
And the nightstick leaned on a black shillelagh
With the poison of a junkie's broken promise on his lip

He staggered in the shadows screaming i ain't never been afraid
And he shot out every street light on the promenade
Past the frozen ham and eggers at the penny arcade
Throwin out handfuls of a blood stained salary
They were dead in their tracks at the shootin gallery
And they fired off a twenty one gun salute
And from the corner of his eye he caught the alabaster orbs
And from a dime a dance hall girl and stuffed a thousand dollar bill
In her blouse and caught the cruel and unusual punishment of her smile
And the nightstick winked beneath a rainsoaked brim
Ain't no one seen hide nor hair of him see
No one but a spade on rikers island and me
And so if you're mad enough to listen to a full of whiskey blindman
Then you're mad enough to look beyond where bloodhounds dare to go
So if you want to know just where the nightstick's hidin out
You be down at the ferry landin oh let's say bout half past a nightmare
When it's twisted on a clock you tell 'em nickels sentcha
Whiskey always makes him talk
And you ask for captain charon with the mud on his kicks
He's the skipper of the deadline steamer
And she sails from the bronx across the river styx
And a riddle's just a ticket for a dreamer

Cause when the weathervane's sleepin and the moon turns his back
You crawl on your belly long the railroad tracks
And cross your heart and hope to die and stick a needle in your eye
Cause he'd cut my bleedin heart out if he found out that i squealed
Cause you see a scarecrow's just a hoodlum
Who marked the cards that he dealed
And pulled a gypsy switch
Out on the edge of potter's field