Lyrics

I.
These inches between us
Are like razor blades
a taxicab canyon through a ghost town
The redder the wine, the better the time
You know.

We saints of small spaces
We tavern kings of one a.m.
Gather in rooms
Killing nothing but time
Big men in our minds
Moths to the light.
Hoboes to the heat.
Hearts filled with concrete and wine

The moon owns this city
And the inches   between.

She comes to me naked sometimes
and I paint her
or fuck her
or both
and then both of us knows
that one of us goes.

A tattooed touch still tests me
A tourist’s wife outdrinks me — for awhile.
Water in the basement while the spigot runs dry
Water in the basement while the spigot runs dry
Cry baby, cry.
 
Life is numbers when it’s nothing else.

II.
Every time a love dies
a voice breaks
a note bends
a shadow falls on Harlem
We saints of small spaces
we tavern kings of one a.m.
we gather in rooms and lie
the last johns on jane street
They and I
And every block we wander
Every rutted road
don’t mean a thing

These cratered walls
These asphalt halls
This motel smell of old age.
The way she hates me makes me hard.
She fucks me anyway, most days.
The longer I go, the less she says my name.
Halfway through she takes a call sometimes:
Yeah, hey, yeah, OK.

A movie-screen smile still fools me
A pull-string line still winds me up
Things is different when you’re pretty for a living. 
Its water in the basement while the spigot runs dry
Water in the basement while the spigot runs dry
Cry baby, cry.
 
Life is numbers when it’s nothing else.

III.
Life is numbers when it’s nothing else.

We jump from stoops and curbs
and call it flying
We lie and long and wait to die
The redder the line, the shorter the time
(You know.)

And all we leave behind
Are the lies we’ve planted
in the hearts we’ve conned
and the names we’ve donned along the way.

The way the man sings ‘You Don’t Know Me’
says the rest.

This was my father’s song.
He sang it all night long.

See, things is different when you’re pretty for a living
I’ll sing a song about it by and by
But things is over when you lie.

Bye, baby.

Bye.