Alice

(album: The Hoople - 1974)

Now Alice needed money I put $10 on the breeze,
As the wind died away she sank way below her knees,
And as a hurricane passed by she clutched the money from the sky,
She must have been at least a fathom high.

She works the 42nd beat on 42nd street,
with all her golden ambitions and dead rhinestones in her feet,
and when a stranger said she sucked she just smiled believing luck,
as she climed into his truck to make a buck.

Oh my god, she's running round the trees,
Said she couldn't touch them because they're so real.

Alice you remind me of Manhattan,
The seedy and the snaz, the shoeboys and the satins,
Like a throne made of gilt that too many johns have sat in,
Oh, I got my eyes on you.

Now keep a watch on your watch and a watch on her watch,
cause if you ain't too careful he's gonna kick you in the crotch,
and you're out in the cold and you know that you've been rolled,
and the cops don't even stop and you feel old.

See Alice really liked you but you stayed a while too long,
now she wants you to forget it and come back before too long,
but make it quick if you could, she's gonna star in Hollywood,
the producer seems to think, she's kinda good.

Me and my camera eyes sitting on a fence,
laughing at the lights of New York City.

Alice you remind of Manhattan,
the seedy and snaz, the shoeboys and the satins,
like a throne made of gilt that too many johns have sat in.
Oh, just come over.

ROLL UP
See Alice on the palace where her name adorns the boards,
ain't no flash in her Cannes, she got the willpower of a horse,
and it's a long way to Broadway from a 42nd lay,
or is it really just a couple of blocks away.

Now I wonder if she wonders if I wonder if she wonders
about the times I put her down when she seemed to be right under?
She told me morals are traditions, contradictions, superstitions,
see Alice is always based on split decisions.

Me and my stupidity sitting on a fence
and digging what I thought was New York City.

Oh Alice, you remind me of Manhattan,
the seedy and snaz, the shoeboys and the satins,
like a throne made of gilt that too many johns have sat in,
Oh, I like you

Yeah Alice, the lights were meant for you,
your weaknesses successful and your selfishness the clue,
you gotta lose what you get and for what you get you lose,
Oh, I know it.

Oh Alice, don't stop and think a minute
or your brain is gonna get ya, drop your heart right in it,
and you're a shooting star and you'll die if you don't win it.
Yeah

You didn't make the book