Before The Fame

Marie, she comes to me in the twilight
When the wind blows down across the river
So cold, the fishermen cry
She rapes me in a rage of rainbow violence
Till my bare nerves, they sing
Like the strings of a violin
And the room seeps into a savage silence
Soaked in colours, red as blood, blue as night
And marie she skins me alive
Carves her initials in my side
Lures me with her purrs and cuts me with her knife
And the horses pound like thunder
They bolt like lightning on her range
She feels she's going under and she zeros in the rein
She's so strange

Well, marie, you know, she's the queen of all the stallions
And i'm her prince of mules
And one of her principal fools
Marie, she's got the claws of a falcon
And she's perched on my shoulder, and slowly digging in
But she, oh she can be so strange sometimes
Like at night ...
Or when the neighbors come to dine
Marie, she skins me alive
Burns her initials in my hide and then leaves me all alone
Branded to the bone

And my heart pounds like her horses
Oh, stampeding on the range
Marie knows all the sources
And she shoots me with her pain
And for her, i take it, lord, down in my veins

And i watch her dance like some berserk fairy
All across the concrete prairies of bleecker street
Marie, she can be so strangebut she's the only lonely cowgirl on my range

The skulls met the pythons
Down at the first street station
Alliance has been made in alleyways
All across the nation
These boys live off the milk of a silver jet
And the love of sweet young women
The pythons are down from old englishtown
And they 're looking to do some living

Well the leader of the pythons
Is a kid they just call zero
Now terry's pop says these kids
Are some kind of monsters
But terry says "no, pop
They're just plain heroes"

Zero and terry had found a love
That burned like wild fire
Now terry's dad understood
That this zero was no good
A tramp, a thief and a liar

Well from out of the darkness
That breaks the dawn
Zero rode like twilight
He said "tonight's the night
Blind terry come on
Terry come on
Tonight is the night
Pack your bags baby"

And together they ran like reindeers
Through the streets
Well like tomorrow the earth
Is gonna catch on fire

Now terry's dad hired some troopers
To kill zero and bring terry back home
They caught up in the night, like firelightthem starlight troopers....
Zero marches through terry's field
They met the pythons down on route nine
But they refused to yield
Now the pythons fought with blazed guns
And the troopers with swords of light
And zero and terry they ran away
And the gang fought all through the night

Now some folks say
Zero and terry got away
Other said they were caught and brought back
Ah, still young pilgrims to this day
Go to that spot way down by the railroad tracks
Where the troopers met the pythons
Old timers cry on a hot august night
If you look hard enough, if you try
You'll see zero and terry and all the pythons
Just hiking them streets up in the sky.

Oh jesse, you better start thinkin' about saving your neck
Oh jesse, you put on that leather jacket like you put on respect
You got cleats on your boots and a woman who shoots everytime you shuffle out the stage door
And darling jesse, do you know what its all for?
Ah jesse, your manager brought by them eight by ten glossies of your band
Oh jesse, he says you wear cross around your neck and come on with nails in your hands
With your insides showing and your new york band blowin' them old chicago blues
Ah jesse, can't you see you're the one jesse
Ah sonny, this time its you
Well jesse, your child is slobbering all over your pants
And jesse, your wife has fallen into a trance
She's got eyes that tell no lies
She's seen so many wars
Ah be a good boy jesse, tell her she don't have to look no more.
Well jesse, he knows all the tricks to get the crowd reeling
Oh and jesse, ya he rocks 'em with that old soul feeling
And he walks off the stage in a self-adoring haze
And gets shoved right out the door
Whoa jesse, can't you see now boy that that's what its all about jesse
Not even time to do that old played out encore
Whoa jesse

The hook hung like a shadow on a rung over shanghai
The firemen were returning home screaming "bonzai!"
And the reindeers played games,
And got hurt in the rain
As I listened to the broadcast.
Oh, blow me down Tokyo 'cuz i'm sinking fast.

And then the band played.
(out of nowhere)
(everybody)
(everybody)

Well now the legendary chaplain of the fighting 51st
Was getting ready to go.
I said "padre do you know a cheap virgin who likes to tango?"
He said "you can try rosa lee;
Around the corner and across the sea.
Oh word is out she's fast."
Oh blow me down now rosie, 'cuz i'm sinking fast.

Yes and the cats are sure getting fat down in the trainyard.
the sandman brings them dreams they ship out in boxcars.
The union says hold; break out the dice, break out the gold.
It's lunchtime at last.
oh, And stage mama said george raff's tonight on the late show.
She sits straddling the kitchen chair really gung-ho
She shivers with chills, wet with slotcar thrills
Hypnotically lost in the glass

And the sun rised, we all sighed...

As we watched the credits pass.
And the little blue dot went away.

And then the morning cloak fell down like a hoax over sleepytown
And garbage truck vigilantes out makin' the last round
He hurriedly sipped his beer, and made fun of the queer
And threatened to kick his ass.

But the bell rang
a horn blows
And he's outside pumping gas
But things were moving so slow tonight
So the kid goes back inside the station
And turns on the radio to his local am station

She was just another war nurse
She could strike a noble pose
Caring for our young boys when a bullet laid them low
She would hover over them and cry
And pull the cover over them when they'd die
She was just another lonesome lady, lover, sister of the gun
And though france would call her darling,
She was a nurse 'neath the rising sun
She knew no hells or heavens, or harbors or havens
She was every mother, sister, wife and lover
Whose love a soldier boy was savin'
She believed in the birth of the broad sword
She was not a shielded one
Though france would call her darlin'
She was nurse 'neath the rising sun
She was a soldier's shrapnel sweetheart, direct from the combat zone
She was a reincarnation o fthe virgin mary
She was the hooker down in san antone
And though her heart was somewhere in iceland
Commanding the dawn patrol
Blessed in this blood and stitched into these bones
The war nurse left her soul
Blessed in this blood and stitched into these bones
The war nurse left her soul

Born on the hudson, twenty-two years gone
Bred and raised in the city
From my daddy's knee i learned the union songs
But grandma sang lullabies of dixie
And though the northern winter fills my heart with joy
Oh it's a southern sun that shines down
On this yankee boy

Mama dreamed of paris nights
And boatin' on the seine
She said, we're gonna make it there too
Soon as papa comes home again
And she'd speak to me in broken french
Dressed like a painting of lautrec's
In the night she'd clutch me to her breast
And say, we'll make it outta here yet
And though parisian women
Strut so fine down the eiffel mall
It's a southern one i sing my songs for

Well with the local bunch of do-good boys
And an old man from the west
We crossed the land in the caravan
Yes we traveled with the best
With circus acts and vaudeville hacks
And the mississippi delta queen
She told me the news and sold me her blues
In an alley in new orleans
And though the western plains are still stained
With the blood of great cowboys
It's a southern sun
That shine down on this yankee boy

The lady keeps the doctor in a place inside her pocket
The circle made her circle like a wheel
The doctor gives a strange love, but the lady she don't knock it
She's glad to get a piece of anything
Because the lady needs the medicine ????????????
Doctor needs the lady to see
The doctor keeps the lady in a page in a book
On the history of communicable diseases
The lady's been to school, she lets the doctor play it cool.
He writes the script, she follows his lead.
'cause the doctor writes love story so fine
The lady's learned to read between the lines
Sometime
The doctor, he takes housecalls where he visits the animals
In their stalls, shoots them full of juice and then goes home.
The lady hits the supermarket where she rides the aisles in a shopping cart
'till she feels she's played enough of the part to set by ooh,
The lady feels its enough to just be good.
But the doctor has his need to be understood.
The doctor feels he's so abused and the lady feels she's so unused
And demands the doctor tends her daily parts.
Ooh, but the doctor just can't do it because so long ago the lady
Blew it, they're too old now to make another start.
The lady feels the doctor's made of stone.
The doctor' heart, it just ain't fond of ?home?

They ride beneath the waves at 20,000 leagues
On stallions stitched to seaweed strands
So smiling, so smiling
They herd the fishes of the deep
They ride for you and me
They ranch the rich and the sunken soil
At the bottom of the sea

In the dead of night, alive in sleep
I hear them calling me
Them deep sea desperadoes
Them midnight maelstrom freaks
The cowboy of the sea

So on wings of sleep i pierce the deep
And ride like a hurricane
At midnight still i paid my bill
And turned my back on the land
With the help of old paint, that seaweed nag
It's just jesse james and me
We ride the depths and rob the banks
At the bottom of the sea

With a seaman's grip on navigation
And some fired, hired hands
We set forth to confront the nation
And lend a cowboy's hand

We do the dolphins' dance duet
My mermaid babe and me
Then i ride of into the blue sunset
At the bottom of the sea

And with the seaman's grip on submarining
And some aqualung outlaws
Our guns are made of solid dreamin'
And bullets from a broken cause
And with hand held high to touch the sky
A good texas ranger i'll bebut sometimes i feel like a lone stranger
'midst the cowboys of the sea

Oh and men above he cannot make love
He's got to rape his mother the sea
And because of his greed
We're a vanishing breed
We cowboys of the sea

I remember yesterday and i'd sit and watch the hound dogs play
Howlin' at the china moon
??now yesterday is the busted blues
Life was young, things were easy,
Days were short, nights were warm
Time were good. hate was shallow
??the horse crazy behind the ????
I swear that i've seen your face somewhere back in that time
And i'm in theat place. do you remember?
The old house stood like world war two with just rooms
And a hall to be used.
The lady was mean.
Just slightly unclean with a heart of cold silver and gold.
Kitchen smelled of kerosene.
Celing hung down on ?veil? and rotted beams
And the man, they said, his work could of hung in the room
Now he sits around all day because his left arm won't move
He was a master of the art of electricity
He lectured on tours and circuitry.
He was self-employed, but he could never see his way into the light
He had a room full of switches and dials and lights and
A head full of clouds and eyes full of sight.
And when it got dark,
I could hear his heartbeat like a mother in the night.
She stood like a guardian ready to give everything up.
If i had asked for a sword and her blood in a cup.
But there was just time when i asked for too much.
She sighed because she could not give it.
We used to sit beneath the tree just the lady, the radio man and me.
And i think it was the winter of '63 the man went away and let us be
It was early on an august day that the lady decided she must go away.
Her heart it seems could not pay the price for what her body was buying
I came home from school and i found the note went into the kitcken
And lit the old stone with songs set on overload.
I turned on the tv, spent the rest of the sfternoon watching
All my cartoons thru the hall
And across the porch was the sun surrendered like a crying torch.

Well the first frame finds her running
But the night pushes her deep within the tunnel
She camouflages herself in dayglo paint
And she sings her love songs through a funnel
And she clings to the walls like a cat who calls
The shots for life and for death
Wearing nothing but the make-up she uses
To try and cover up for herself
Well if she can't hide her sword
She gives no terms for surrender
'cause she's living the third world war

The tunnel police, they steadily increase
The search for where she hides her kid
She swings on a vine across the state line
They measured the length of her skid
She never goes back to do something she didn't
Or undo something she did
Smoke streams from the street
And the night is complete
With a long and fiery belch
She's just another orphan annie cartoon and a raquel welch

She rides like caesar, brandishing a whip
On the hood of his squad car
As the siren wails she silently sails
Leaving footprints in the tar
Oh she breaks with the dawn
And by morning she's gone
Leaving nothing but another night
She returns to her home
Like a dog returns to a bone
Another unsatisfied wife

And there's little booth
Secure from the truth
He wants her more than he's got the guts to say
'cause as she needs to be real
He needs to conceal
The realness of his place
So he sings a little song
And in a chiffon sarong
She performs a black ballet in space
But she's another flop with a fancy name
And he's just another cop with a pretty face
So together they commit the ultimate crime
Two hearts locked in true waltz time