When You Give It Away

[Verse 1]
Slid out of my dreams like a baby out of the nurse's hands
Onto the hard floor of day
I'd been wearing OJ's gloves
And I couldn't get them off
It was too early, but I couldn't sleep
Showered and dressed and stepped out into the heat
The parrot things on the porch next door announced my arrival on Chartres Street
With their finest rendition of squealing brakes
Down at Kaldi's Café the newspaper headlines promised new revelations
About Prince Charles' Amex account
A morose young man in old-time Austrian drag stared past his long mustache at the floor
And last night's punks and fetish kids, all tattoos and metal bits
And in the other corner, wearing the white trunks
Today's tourists, already sweating

[Verse 2]
Deep in the city of the saints and fools
Pearls before pigs and dung become jewels
I sit down with tigers, I sit down with lambs
None of them know who exactly I am

[Chorus]
I've got this thing in my heart
I must give you today
It only lives when you
Give it away

[Verse 3]
Languid mandala of the ceiling fan
Teases the air like a slow stroking hand
Study the faces, study the cards
Study the shadow creeping over the yard

[Chorus]
I've got this thing in my heart
I must give you today
It only lives when you
Give it away

[Guitar and Organ Duet]

[Verse 4]
Trouble with the nations, trouble with relations
Where you going to go for some illumination?
Too much to carry, too much to let go
Time goes fast, learning goes slow

[Chorus]
But I've got this thing in my heart
I must give you today
It only lives when you
Give it away
I've got this thing in my heart
I must give you today
It only lives when you
Give it away
Give it away