Down and Out in the Bold New City of the South

I'm calling out to all the famous clowns and bums
I'm sneakin' out, peakin' in your windows
Watchin' you kiss the screen
Loving them, like I hope they love me

I'm calling out to all the famous clowns and bums
I'm sneakin' out, peakin' inside your homes
Watchin' you, watch them split their seams
Loving them, like I hope they love me

I'm calling out to all the famous clowns and bums
I'm sneakin' out, peakin' in your windows
Watchin' you kiss the screen
Loving them, like I hope they love me

I'm calling out to all the famous clowns and bums
I'm sneakin' out, peakin' in your homes
Watchin' you, watch them split their seams
Loving them, like I hope they love me

It's the return of the ghost, the raising of the dead
And the glowing approach shadows stick the foot of your bed
With windy notes, so fog the window with breath
I drag my footprints through your grass and all across your garden

I never know just what's to be said
It's so close to the wall, the cars'll get hit
So spell it out in the fog in the window pane
Written backwards at your expense for everyone else's gain

It's hard tonight but it's comin' in clear
You called 'em right? They're comin' here
They got the couch and he's got the chair
I got the flower beds, some sweaty palms, a couple dumb ideas
Brain, hearts and minds stuck in discovery fears

I've been alive in little bursts
It's the little bits of life that hurt
The way to write's been across the dirt
The sunspots seen behind your work
The ball of kindness is shipping the bird
Toss in smiling, call him first
It covers up the best and hurts the worst

The little freckles the sun will painted across your shoulder blades
The biggest hit to come across the space
The calling and the fall of all who wait
The fingerprints and window glass
The funny women, superstitious, afraid of cats
The dumbest feeling, the embarrassment that puts us on our ass

Looking back, then moving on
The stupid songs, the foolish ones
The wisest sighs, the brightest lies
The Broadway clip that turns the gate
Broke hold but don't get close kids
Turns out it's understood, it's time to miss

I'm calling out to all the famous clowns and bums
I'm sneakin' out, peakin' in your windows
Watchin' you kiss the screen
Lovin' you, like I hope you love me

I'm calling out to all the famous clowns and bums
I'm sneakin' out, peakin' inside your homes
Watchin' you, watch them split their seams
Lovin' them, like I hope they love me

I'm calling out to all the famous clowns and bums
I'm sneakin' out, peakin' in your windows
I'm calling out to all the famous clowns and bums
I'm sneakin' out, peakin' in your windows

I'm calling out to all the famous clowns and bums
I'm sneakin' out, peakin' in your windows
Watchin' you, watch them split their seams
Lovin' them, like I hope they love me

The sun came in over on the building ridge
And 56 feet below, a Domincan jogs his path to death 'round paint stained block
While the chief turns on his radio and cracks his Steel Reserve
I wonder how many of last night's lovers double parked

This city swallows men
He tells me tales of places that he ran, eventually ran from
Never to return again
It's funny in luck and love
You can never remember the moment that you fell in
Or recall when you fell out of touch

The city's hushed, keepin' it's secrets
The sunshine is blinding, riding, hiding wrinkles and creases
Beautiful features chipped, cracked, crippled and weakened
Tragic pageant queen bleeds; soft focus keepin' her even

The city's breathing, feel it coming awake
Every exhalation creates a gray across the skyscape
Like the sky's a looking glass and in the fog, the dirty breath left
We can etch our dreams and wipe it clean before they see

It's city's rushing, picking up a bitter steam a bit
The Chief's beat his shift till first sip
A malt liquor will bleed through lips
He flips a small piece of shit
Driver's license for money clip
And showing off everything equipped
With a face like, "Look what I did..."

City's up in arms, the Chief is ravin'
Sick of taxes, sick of working
Sick of waitin', sick and tired of what the city's faced
Enlisting ladies chased from the bottom of his history's basement
A tomb of her own, a room caked in cobwebs, odd and ends and vases

This city's built a head of steam, the river shivers steadily
The poison boilin' up from beneath the lies and memories
I spent the last three months in shambles
Drunk on clouds and syphoned stars
I shook every palm left-handed
Dozing off inside the back of a bar

Woke in a party with streamers tossed inside my hair
My head's been ringin' loud
A cigarette burns out inside my left hand
And dust the cane and bottled cacophony off of me, standing
And blow a kiss to my chair

Unlock the deadbolt baby, I'm comin' home
You'll never see my face around here
You'll never see my face around here
You'll never see my face again

The patron saint will take his place singing me to sleep
Now I need strength now that all my rowdy friends have settled down
Fingertips and sandy pockets full of stolen beer
And all I can come up with the same news is bad news from this old town

It's all I have, what a beautiful piece of rotten luck
You don't have the right to pay for my kisses and backwater dreams
I'm sneakin' my hands across your shoulder blades
In hopes you fall into my arms and fall into the leaves then fall asleep

And while the city grinds its teeth
We're dreaming while we race, hold me fast, to boot straps
The leaves are holding us to the earth
With your eyes shut tight, anyone can be king
We're in projectors, steal concesssions, like the picture was blurred

We face the days that we can't see, we run and we fall
We hate this place, but we can't leave, so what do we call it?
Now it's cornered by the cat's calls that's chewed through the walls
Have you ever met such a son of a bitch you hated to love?

Facing the sun centers away from a soft shoe, dreams of tap dance
Hangover a headache aversion to civility, turning to beach
Arm in arm over an old flame
Before the kids, the cats, the catch-22s and the cocaine

I know it's slow, James, the strips malls are the same
With a fresh coat of paint and more fucking fast food chains
But it's okay, my feet are still fine
The sun's still burning, blurring lines between the sea and the sky

Leaving me blind to stagger from the scene to the street
The street to the streams that bleed to the east to feed the machine and leave us in peace
Soon as they receive their load and sing a song of St. John's
And sail alone around the rest of the globe

We sail alone through the night past your house
Stealing signs, laughing loud, driving dragons, passing out
Private pageants, collapsing clouds, it's our version of laughing out
We're down and out in the bold new city of the south

Calling out...