Steve Forbert's Midsummer Night's Toast

(album: Alive On Arrival - 1978)

Here's to all you all you lucky dogs, it's heads or tails
Here's to all you filthy rich, I wish you well
Here's to all the pretty women made for cash
And here's to dashing daddy's son he's such a flash

Well, I been looking and walking 'round the sunset square
Singing and talking with my friends down there
Sitting and listening with a young man's ear
To all the rainbow dreams

Here's to all the shitty jobs that I despise
Here's to two-bit guarantees and other lies
Here's to roads of burning tar and hot cement
Here's to money in my hand and where it went

I... I got my fingers a-tapping on the hard, stone steps
I'm waiting for lightning and the rains to fall
Young lovers are loafing with their sidewalk smiles
And all their rainbow dreams

Amy Alice, in the summer
With a sack lunch and a punch card
See my sister with a drag job
Ah man, she feels like she's a hundred years ago

Well, here's to people living lives that they regret
Work your fingers to the bone and sink in debt
Here's to all the shaky tricks what hustlers try
You know their easy money is oft-times hard
You know they flash a grin and they wink their eye

I... I been living an' breathing in the rat trap town
Try'na get over where the wall breaks down
Holding my head up with my thin tired arms
And all my rainbow dreams

Yeah