She goes smokin’ down in Soho,
she’s a prophet decked in low-cut jeans.
She jives gin and juice
just like a secret-agent calico queen.
You can always find her there,
she’s the darling of the masses:
my aviator baby in her aviator glasses.
She’s an aviator baby,
but baby doesn’t know how to fly.
She burns like a Browning
but she always leaves me feeling cold.
But every time I see her
my heart starts doing barrel rolls.
She goes twirling in the dark
when the red lights fade.
She’s an aviator baby in her aviator shades.
She’s an aviator baby,
but baby doesn’t know how to fly.
Soaring down through Leicester Square,
she’s a Spitfire princess in the evening air,
Bulls-eye emblazoned on her back.
Twisting like a treble clef,
Griffon-powered pride of the R.A.F.
Green-eyed gunner baby always on the attack.
If you see her in the city,
make quite certain that you’re strapped in tight.
'Cause once she’s down the runway
my baby’s not landing ‘til the end of the night.
Now she’s dealing out the cards,
now she’s winning all the games,
in her aviator glasses and her diamond-studded frames.
She's an aviator baby,
but baby doesn't know how to fly.
Hey Maggie, why don't you answer your phone?
I left you a message at your tone
but I can't seem to get through.
Last Tuesday, you said "Honey, everything's okay."
You swore that you'd never again stray,
and since then I haven’t seen you.
Maggie girl, we’re at the end of our time.
You always tried to spend your life straddling ley lines.
Never worried about what you aligned yourself to.
Now you're gone,
you’re driving away through a black dawn.
You stole the sheets that we slept on
and all of those plans that I had.
Sometimes you're the snap in my hard rhymes,
you're the wind in my windchimes,
and sometimes you just make me mad.
And I'm a hopeless reactionary.
It's the way that you scheme when you're hopelessly stuck.
It's the way that you move when you're down on your luck.
Your friends say you finally moved out to L.A.
socialite debutante cliché,
you’re the finest new face in the town.
All those times when you were the snap in my hard rhymes,
when you were the wind in my windchimes,
well you never did want me around.
You’re a working-class flirt
in your stockings and skirt,
sittin’ pretty in the back of the bar.
Well you primp and you preen
for your social-club scene.
Hey little lady I won’t take you too far.
I wanna get with you baby
‘cause your sister is a rock and roll star.
She's a real blues screamer,
riverboat redeemer.
Saw her in Frisco at the end of the tour.
Her name on the marquis.
She screamed like a banshee.
She gave two encores but we wanted more.
We were all up dancing,
but your sister knocked us right to the floor.
She's a queen of the obscene on a serpentine throne.
I’ve seen her photo in the pages of my Rolling Stone.
You're a modest little girl, yeah you'll do all right,
but can't you introduce me to your shakin' sister tonight?
She’s got a tiger cub from Bombay,
diamonds from Zimbabwe.
She’s got her agents and her boys with guitars.
But I’d love her and protect her,
I’ve bought all of her records –
but I just can’t be satisfied from afar.
That’s why you’ve gotta help me baby,
'cause your sister is a rock and roll star.
Lace up your copper shoes.
Walk to the park, past accordion blues.
Sun comes and sun fades away,
but child there's never another today
we're out in full array.
I'll be Brando, you be Vivien Leigh,
tempting each other in the sun.
Oh, won't that be fun?
Darting like rabbits on the run.
Soak up this sweet September heat,
with copper shoes on your pretty feet.
And it’s what you want.
And it’s what you need.
You’ve got to get out off the street.
You've got the strangest way
of telling me everything you can't really say.
There's Motown music in your walk,
you sing like a sparrow but you kill like a hawk
it's in the way you talk.
Debating like a ticking clock,
until you break and paint drips down your sides
and you come all untied.
Melt just like castles in high tide.
But like a fool I’ll stick around,
rebuild your towers on soggy ground.
Shout now for burning trees,
dance the ripple in each and every changing breeze.
Soak up this color in your mind,
magnificent purely copacetic design
a world and make it yours,
with golden walls and marble floors
and English chocolate streaming down the street.
Oh it’s all so complete,
your Wallace Stevens-esque retreat.
But if these thoughts float by too fast
just sing the starlings in the grass.
You’re lure and tackle, line and bait.
I’m luckless monarch caught in mate.
You’ve got me trapped behind your rook,
but I’m not fool enough to bite on your hook
your fingers into mine,
‘cause maybe this is our last time
to swing before your favorite record ends,
and we have to pretend,
we’ll meet for lunch like long-lost friends.
A sandwich shop, a bite to eat,
and copper shoes on your pretty feet.
Philadelphia, 1961. Fabricated passport and a stolen gun.
Chinese restaurant and a Learjet out of town.
Mickey gave the cop a fake address,
Emma hid the payoff in her purple dress.
Seven-thirty they were nowhere to be found.
Carson City, early '66. Argentina accents and a blackjack fix.
Tipped the bellhop twenty pesos and the game was on.
Mickey's suitcase full of traveler's checks,
Emma ran the table with a loaded deck.
Called the station but the Ramble Twins were gone.
A pistol and a poison ballpoint pen.
You've been burned by the Ramble Twins;
now you can't comprehend
how you've been duped and you've been played
and you've been juked again.
Mississippi, June of '72.
Dinner with the Doctor at a soul revue.
Glass of whiskey for a local sheriff stooge.
Emma writing out a ransom note,
Mickey cut the lighting on the riverboat.
Caught a train and they woke up in Baton Rouge.
South Chicago summer '74.
Counterfeiting fifties on the fourteenth floor.
Masquerading through McCormick like electric kings.
Mickey's camera caught the Rex affair,
Emma pulled the trigger on the basement stairs.
Couldn't catch 'em cause they saw right through the sting.
Southern London, '79. A lion and a lance on a tavern sign.
Twenty quid for a room at the upstairs inn.
A blaze of rifles and a bloody yell,
twelve long strokes from the chapel bell.
One last stand for the famous Ramble Twins.
A pistol and a poison ballpoint pen.
You've been burned by the Ramble Twins;
now you can't comprehend
how you've been robbed and you've been rolled,
you've been played and you've been had,
you've been fooled and you've been juked again.
Johnny you can dance
but you're never gonna find another nice girl.
Middle of the city, she was pretty,
she was soft in a hard world.
When word gets around in this town
what you did to poor Jen,
no kindhearted woman will even consider you then.
So Johnny you can dance
but you'll never find a nice girl again.
Johnny you can drink,
but you're never gonna drink away your troubles.
Take another shot, feelin’ hot,
pretty soon you're seeing double.
But there is no mixture of liquor, no whiskey or rum,
to fix all your problems, to undone the damage you've done.
So Johnny you can drink, you can hide,
but you sure can't run.
I won't condone what you do.
Johnny you treat people cruel.
And yes I'm your friend, but I will not pretend
that everything always comes out in the end.
So Johnny you can dance,
but you'll never find a nice girl again.
Johnny you can look,
but you know that you're running out of places.
Take a look around, see the looks of scorn on all their faces.
Perhaps you should make the acquaintance of Sally Divine.
She's saucy and sweet, such a treat,
oh you'll have a good time.
She works down on Broad St,
I think she's third in the line.
You tell me we’re so good together.
You say we’ve only just begun.
But you're a talker, a high-strung schedule clocker,
and I'm a child of the sun.
You're heading in the right direction.
I'm heading east to reach the shore.
‘Cause I'm a rabbit in a Carolina orchard,
and baby, you're a captain in the war.
You have a suit coat made of satin.
I have a t-shirt of the Stones.
You’re important, and I’m just self-absorbent,
since you’re always on the phone.
You’re rising fast in corporate quarters,
I’m falling to the barroom floor.
You’ll be rich and I’ll living in a motel,
but baby, I can’t take you anymore.
I'll be under the summer triangle
if the rain clouds ever clear
I'll be counting the stars in Delphinius
like I have done for years and years and years.
You'll be inside astride your television,
bathed in neon blue and white.
Planning out your next week’s victories,
while I get lost in charcoal night.
You packed your things and moved to Boston.
I hitched a ride halfway to home.
Boardroom warlord, you thought you had me cornered,
but I’m better on my own.
When you get bored don’t try to find me
I won’t let you get me down.
I’m a rabbit in a Carolina orchard
and baby, I won’t let myself be found.
Lock the windows, switch out the kitchen light.
Grab your cigarettes and plunge into the night.
You say forget the map, let's do it our own way.
Don't stop ‘til we reach San Jose.
Climb in my Chevrolet, faded white and red.
The passing headlights form a halo ‘round your head.
A static station plays a John Lee Hooker song –
Aurora’s near; it won’t take long.
Pack up your pretty paper,
your dried-out piece of string.
I've got that dusty record,
the one you used to sing.
If you've got lucky silver dice,
lay down your money on red twos.
We'll enter Frisco just like kings
in ringer shirts and brand new shoes.
The snow is falling, Indiana 55.
I need to stretch my legs, you say you’d like to drive.
Our heater’s on the fritz, but somehow we’ll survive.
If you ain’t cold, you ain’t alive.
Throw the car into neutral,
we’ll coast the last half-mile.
Put on your brown fedora,
we’ll reach the sea in style
I’ve got a dollar thirty-three,
let’s find a diner in the back.
We’ll find a decent spot to sleep –
God bless the ghost of Kerouac.
My little lady wears a red dress, and a jet black pair of shoes.
Walks down the street all the women turn green,
all the young men get the blues.
Shifts her hips like a lunar eclipse,
glowing like a yellow daisy.
My iridescent lover, my sweet little rainbow lady.
My little lady’s got ocean eyes, indigo and swirls.
Skin shiny like a fine set of China, alabaster pearl.
Swings her junk with a turquoise funk,
she’s showing off her chocolate curls.
She’s my iridescent lover, my sweet little rainbow girl.
My little girl's got orange sunglasses and a purple Cadillac.
Lives at the end of Flamingo Lane, in a psychedelic shack.
Pure lyricism, sun through a prism,
coloring the newsprint world.
My iridescent lover, my sweet little rainbow girl.
The door is locked and I’m not inside,
you best be on your way.
So take your shoes and don’t forget your booze
and fade back into grey.
As long as I keep playing this game
I’ll die every day.
But Maggie girl, don’t you want it that way?
Now, I’m out on the streets all day long,
just trying to get by.
It’s hard enough trying to keep a dry eye.
You say you wanna try once more
before we say goodbye.
But we both know what that implies.
Maggie girl, I can’t take it no more,
we both know we are through.
And all those lies you told about me
you know that they were true.
I can’t be your crutch no more
and you don’t know what to do.
Because Maggie girl, I am through with you.
You left me stranded in the straits,
just waiting to get caught.
The only things I have with me
are those which I have brought.
You took all you could the first time
and left me here to rot.
Now you’re back saying,
"What else have you got?"
You came back from L.A.
looking for someone to do.
But your gown’s on the ground
and there’s no one around for you.
I don’t even like to think of you
as someone that I knew.
Much less a girl that I tried to pursue.
But Maggie girl, I needed you
to be the person I wanted you to.
But hey, I was just trying to find
if the love you had was all mine.
But I didn’t find anything at all.
I've got a terra-cotta pot and I'm filling it up with marigolds.
I've got a secondhand red guitar that taught me rock and roll.
I've got family and a band,
enough best friends for a baseball team,
and every sunny afternoon is a Technicolor stereo dream.
So baby don't slow me down.
Don't you know in a matter of months I'll be king of this town.
Stick with me now, I’m doing just fine.
You've got a certain way of sitting,
like a robin on a power line.
Perched between the pines and the unending sky.
Will you still be here at nightfall as the pines turn black?
Well you can only go so far before you can't turn back.
And when it's too dark to see
put your faith in blue jeans and daydreams
and old thirty-threes.
Let yourself free, you're doing just fine.
I'm gonna take my little girl and hitchhike down to Monterey.
I've got two empty pockets
but a whole lot of records so I’m okay.
If you want to come along just let me know, we'll do it right.
We'll have psychedelic afternoons and fireworks nights.
Stick with me now baby . . .
It’s summertime . . .
Let yourself free . . .
