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| Underground |
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Rattle Big Black Bones in the Danger zone there's a rumblin' groan down below there's a big dark town it's a place I've found there's a world going on Underground
they're alive, they're awake
all the roots hang down |
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| Shore leave |
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Well with buck shot eyes and a purple heart I rolled down the national stroll and with a big fat paycheck strapped to my hip sack and a shore leave wristwatch underneath my sleeve in a Hong Kong drizzle on Cuban heels I rowed down the gutter to the Blood Bank and I'd left all my papers on the Ticonderoga and was in a bad need of a shave and so I slopped at the corner on cold chow mein and shot billards with a midget until the rain stopped and I bought a long sleeved shirt with horses on the front and some gum and a lighter and a knife and a new deck of cards (with girls on the back) and I sat down and wrote a letter to my wife and I said Baby, I'm so far away from home and I miss my Baby so I can't make it by myself I love you so Well I was pacing myself trying to make it all last squeezing all the life out of a lousy two day pass and I had a cold one at the Dragon with some Filipino floor show and talked baseball with a lieutenant over a Singapore sling and I wondered how the same moon outside over this Chinatown fair could look down on Illinois and find you there and you know I love you Baby and I'm so far away from home and I miss my Baby so I can't make it by myself I love you so Shore Leave... Shore Leave... |
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| Dave the butcher (Instrumental) |
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| Johnsburg, Illinois (Instrumental) |
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| 16 shells from a 30.6 |
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I plugged 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six and a Black Crow snuck through a hole in the sky so I spent all my buttons on an old pack mule and I made me a ladder from a pawn shop marimba and I leaned it up against a dandelion tree And I filled me a sachel full of old pig corn and I beat me a billy from an old French horn and I kicked that mule to the top of the tree and I blew me a hole 'bout the size of a kickdrum and I cut me a switch from a long branch elbow CHORUS I'm gonna whittle you into kindlin' Black Crow 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six whittle you into kindlin' Black Crow 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six Well I slept in the holler of a dry creek bed and I tore out the buckets from a red Corvette, tore out the buckets from a red Corvette Lionel and Dave and the Butcher made three you got to meet me by the knuckles of the skinnybone tree with the strings of a Washburn stretched like a clothes line you know me and that mule scrambled right through the hole CHORUS Now I hold him prisoner in a Washburn jail that stapped on the back of my old kick mule strapped it on the back of my old kick mule I bang on the strings just to drive him crazy I strum it loud just to rattle his cage strum it loud just to rattle his cage CHORUS |
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| Town with no cheer |
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Well it's hotter 'n blazes and all the long faces there'll be no oasis for a dry local grazier there'll be no refreshment for a thirsty jackaroo from Melbourne to Adelaide on the overlander with newfangled buffet cars and faster locomotives the train stopped in Serviceton less and less often There's nothing sadder than a town with no cheer Voc Rail decided the canteen was no longer necessary there no spirits, no bilgewater and 80 dry locals and the high noon sun beats a hundred and four there's a hummingbird trapped in a closed down shoe store This tiny Victorian rhubarb kept the watering hole open for sixty five years now it's boilin' in a miserable March 21 st wrapped the hills in a blanket of Patterson's curse the train smokes down the xylophone there'll be no stopping here all ya can be is thirsty in a town with no cheer no Bourbon, no Branchwater though the townspeople here fought her Vic Rail decree tooth and nail now it's boilin' in a miserable March 21 st wrapped the hills in a blanket of Patterson's curse the train smokes down the xylophone there'll be no stopping here all ya can be is thirsty in a town with no cheer |
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| In the neighborhood |
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Well the eggs chase the bacon round the fryin' pan and the whinin' dog pidgeons by the steeple bell rope and the dogs tipped the garbage pails over last night and there's always construction work bothering you In the neighborhood In the neighborhood In the neighborhood Friday's a funeral and Saturday's a bride Sey's got a pistol on the register side and the goddamn delivery trucks they make too much noise and we don't get our butter delivered no more In the neighborhood In the neighborhood In the neighborhood Well Big Mambo's kicking his old grey hound and the kids can't get ice cream 'cause the market burned down and the newspaper sleeping bags blow down the lane and that goddamn flatbed's got me pinned in again In the neighborhood In the neighborhood In the neighborhood There's a couple Filipino girls gigglin' by the church and the windoe is busted and the landlord ain't home and Butch joined the army yea that's where he's been and the jackhammer's diggin' up the sidewalks again In the neighborhood In the neighborhood In the neighborhood |
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| Just another sucker on the vine(Instrumental) |
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| Frank's wild years (For Frankie Z.) |
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Well Frank settled down in the Valley and hung his wild years on a nail that he drove through his wife's forehead he sold used office furniture out there on San Fernando Road and assumed a $30,000 loan at 15 1/4 % and put down payment on a little two bedroom place his wife was a spent piece of used jet trash made good bloody marys kept her mouth shut most of the time had a little Chihuahua named Carlos that had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind. They had a thoroughly modern kitchen self-cleaning oven (the whole bit) Frank drove a little sedan they were so happy One night Frank was on his way home from work, stopped at the liquor store, picked up a couple Mickey's Big Mouths drank 'em in the car on his way to the Shell station, he got a gallon of gas in a can, drove home, doused everything in the house, torched it, parked across the street, laughing, watching it burn, all Halloween orange and chimney red then Frank put on a top forty station got on the Hollywood Freeway headed north Never could stand that dog |
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| Swordfishtrombone |
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Well he came home from the war with a party in his head and modified Brougham DeVille and a pair of legs that opened up like butterfly wings and a mad dog that wouldn't sit still he went and took up with a Salvation Army Band girl who played dirty water on a swordfishtrombone he went to sleep at the bottom of Tenkiller lake and he said "gee, but it's great to be home." Well he came home from the war with a party in his head and an idea for a fireworks display and he knew that he'd be ready with a stainless steel machete and a half a pint of Ballentine's each day and he holed up in room above a hardware store cryin' nothing there but Hollywood tears and he put a spell on some poor little Crutchfield girl and stayed like that for 27 years Well he packed up all his expectations he lit out for California with a flyswatter banjo on his knee with a lucky tiger in his angel hair and benzedrine for getting there they found him in a eucalyptus tree lieutenant got him a canary bird and shaked her head with every word and Chesterfielded moonbeams in a song and he got 20 years for lovin' her from some Oklahoma governor said everything this Doughboy does is wrong Now some say he's doing the obituary mambo and some say he's hanging on the wall perhaps this yarn's the only thing that holds this man together some say he was never here at all Some say they saw him down in Birmingham, sleeping in a boxcar going by and if you think that you can tell a bigger tale I swear to God you'd have to tell a lie... |
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| Down, down, down |
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He went down down down and the devil called him by name he went down down down hangin' onto the back of a train he went down down down this boy went solid down always chewed tobacco and the bathtub gin always chewed tobacco and the bathtub gin he went down down down this boy went solid down he went down Well he went down down down and the jumped on his head he went down down down stayin' in a broken down shed he went down down down sleepin' in the devil's bed he went down down down never listened to the words I said he went down down down down he went down Well he went down down down and the devil said where you been he went down down down he screamin' down around the bend down down down this boy went solid down He was always cheatin' and he always told lies he was always cheatin' and he always told lies he went down down down down down down this boy went solid down he went down |
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| Soldier's things |
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Davenports and kettle drums and swallow tail coats table cloths and patent leather shoes bathing suits and bowling balls and clarinets and rings and all this radio really needs is a fuse a tinker, a tailor a soldier's things his rifle, his boots full of rocks and this one is for bravery and this one is for me and everything's a dollar in this box Cuff links and hub caps trophies and paperbacks it's good transportation but the brakes aren't so hot neck tie and boxing gloves this jackknife is rusted you can pound that dent out on the hood a tinker, a tailor a soldier's things his rifle, his boots full of rocks oh and this one is for bravery and this one is for me and everything's a dollar in this box |
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| Gin soaked boy |
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I got a belly full of you and that Leavenworth stuff now I'm gonna get out And I'm gonna get tough you been lying to me How could you crawl so low with some gin-soaked boy that you don't know I come home last night full a filth of Old Crow you said you goin' to your ma's but where the hell did you go you went and slipped out nights you didn't think that I'd know with some gin-soaked boy that you don't know Well I would bet you as far as Oklahoma by now the dogs are barking out back and you're knittin' your brow well I'm on your tail I sussed your M.O. from some gin-soaked boy boy that you don't know |
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| Trouble's braids |
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Well I pulled on trouble's braids and I hid in the briars out by the quick mud stayin' away from the main roads passin' out wolf tickets downwind from the blood hounds and I pulled on trouble's braids and I lay by a cypress as quiet as a stone 'til the bleeding stopped I blew the weather vane off some old road house I build a fire in the skeleton back seat of an old Tucker and I pulled on trouble's braids I spanked cold red mud where the hornet stung deep and I tossed in the ditch in a restless sleep and I pulled on trouble's braids I hung my rain-soaked jacket on some old barbed wire poured cold rusty water on a miserable fire I pulled on trouble's braids the creek was swollen by daybreak and I could just barely see and I floated downstream on an old dead tree and I pulled on trouble's braids I pulled on trouble's braids I pulled on trouble's braids I pulled on trouble's braids |
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| Rainbirds (Instrumental) |
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