Hot Rod Hotel

(album: Mermaid Avenue Vol. II - 2000)

I'm a porter and a night clerk at the old Hot Rod Hotel
I clean and scrub the lobby down and thirty-one rooms as well
I wax and shine their boots and shoes, I brush down their crinkly clothes
And I meet the buses and trains and I show you to your door

Bell-bottom pants brought two boys in at six-fourteen last night
Two girls checked in at ten-oh-two and I flipped on the light
The landlord's wife looks in their doors and finds one terrible sight
Those boys and girls got bawled up in their doors and rooms that night

A bloody flood could never mess these rooms up any worse
It looked like Moe had used this room to grease and breed a horse
Old gum and hairs and sticky rags, old bottles on the floors
Gobs of spit and condom rubbers on the windows, walls, and doors

The lammy tried to make me clean out that crappy mess
Or else he'd fire me off my job and let me starve to death
I laid aside my polish rag and I downed my dusting pan
And I've not seen the old Hot Rod nor that old town since then