New York I Love You

(album: Out Of All This Blue - 2017)

She waited at the door till all his saddest words were spoken
Then she threw them with some seasoning in his face
Duke went rambling in his grief, like a vagabond or thief
Trying to find the love he sought some other place
He walked down the river highway in the melting summer sun
And shouted out above the cars and trucks
I wish I could become some kind of psychedelic bum
Or a happy travelling troubadour deluxe

New York whatcha gonna do about it?
New York climb up on the roof and shout it
New York see there ain't no doubt about it
Something in this town I just can't live without

She lay across the bed, raven hair piled atop her head
Re-reading through the poem that she wrote
She had a feeling in her belly like her belly had been screwed
But luckily she knew the antidote
She stepped out on the street dressed in scarlet head to feet
Her hat the same precise shade as her lips
She tried to feel the way she had when love was young and gay and glad
She couldn't... but still she swung her hips

New York whatcha gonna do about it?
New York climb up on the roof and shout it
New York see there ain't no doubt about it
Something in this town I just can't live without

He phoned her up and said, honey, it was nothing but a number
And numbers can mislead you and confuse
To which she said, I've heard, like guns and cash and sex and words
If the user is a fool they get misused
He almost smashed the phone in rage but it held his database
So he lit himself a little joint instead
And told himself a lie about the who and when and why
And kids that's how a man becomes a chowderhead

New York whatcha gonna do about it?
New York climb up on the roof and shout it
New York see there ain't no doubt about it
Something in this town I just can't live without

She wrote a bitter novelette and stuck it on the internet
I believe you still can find it there for free
In the morning she would jog then post updates on her blog
And one day she upped and moved to Tennessee
The landlord rented her apartment to the NY Police Department
Who installed a cop named Franklin J.J. Paul
Who was putting up a shelf, humming opera to himself
When he found her poems nestled in the wall

New York whatcha gonna do about it?
New York climb up on the roof and shout it
New York see there ain't no doubt about it
Something in this town I just can't live without

Duke doublechecked the deadlock of his Lower East Side store
And jumped into a car with yellow fins
He told himself "just tell it like is, man, just nail it on the line
And be honest with your tongue from here on in"
He was never satisfied with a comfortable ride
He had to be the crazy cosmonaut in flight
They found his body near a crumbling Hudson River pier
On a wild and stormy hot midsummer night

New York whatcha gonna do about it?
New York climb up on the roof and shout it
New York see there ain't no doubt about it
Something in this town I just can't live without

Me I couldn't sleep, I just lay there in a heap
The whole city was a swamp of heat and steam
At six a.m. came thunder and eventually I slumbered
Into a fanciful and curious kind of dream
I was driving Hank's Cadillac as he rested in the back
On the final night of nineteen fifty-two
I offered him a smoke but Hank never woke
He was too far gone, and he was only passing through
I got up at ten to five, feeling almost seven-eighths alive
And was sitting in my favourite easy chair
When Duke's immortal soul crowned with a golden aureole
Flew by my window on its way to who knows where
I took Tylenol for my head and then went out to get some bread
Like Lou I had twenty six bucks in my hand
By the Sixteen Handles shop I saw an overweight cop
Stuffing reams of paper in a garbage can

New York whatcha gonna do about it?
New York climb up on the roof and shout it
New York see there ain't no doubt about it
Something in this town I just can't live without

New York, I love you

New York, New York
New York, New York
Meet me in New York, New York, baby
New York, New York
Even the shittiest old times are still great in New York, New York
New York, New York
New York, New York
New York, New York