@ALBUM: FOREIGN AFFAIRS` by TOM WAITS @SONG: Muriel muriel since you left town the clubs closed down and there's one more burned out lamppost down on the main street down where we used to stroll and muriel i still hit all the same old haunts and you follow me wherever i go and muriel i see you on a saturday night in a penny arcade with your hair tied back and the diamond twinkle in your eye is the only wedding ring i'll buy you muriel and muriel how many times i've left this town to hide from your memory and it haunts me but i only get as far as the next whiskey bar i buy another cheap cigar and i'll see you every night hey muriel muriel hey buddy got a light @SONG: I Never Talk To Strangers stop me if you've heard this one i feel as though we've met before perhaps i'm mistaken but it's just that i remind you of someone you used to care about but that was long ago do you think i'd fall for that i wasn't born yesterday besides i never talk to strangers anyway i ain't a bad guy when you get to know me i just thought there ain't no harm hey just try minding your own business bud who asked you to annoy me with your sad repartee besides i never talk to strangers anyway your life's a dimestore novel this town is full of guys like you and you're looking for someone to take the place of her and you're bitter cause he left you that's why you're drinkin in this bar well only suckers fall in love with perfect strangers it always takes one to know one stranger maybe we're just wiser now and been around the block so many times that we don't notice that we're all just perfect strangers as long as we ignore that we all begin as strangers just before we find we really aren't strangers anymore @SONG: Jack & Neal jack was sittin poker faced with bullets backed with bitches neal hunched at the wheel puttin everyone in stiches braggin bout this nurse he screwed while drivin through nebraska and when she came she honked the horn and neal just barely missed a truck and then he asked her if she'd like to come like that to californy see a red head in a uniform will always get you horny with her hairnet and those white shoes and a name tag and a hat she drove like andy granatelli and knew how to fix a flat and jack was almost at the bottom of his md 2020 neal was yellin out the window tryin to buy some bennies from a lincoln full of mexicans whose left rear tire blowed and the sonsobitches prit near almost ran off the road well the nurse had spilled the manoshevitz all up and down her dress then she lit the map on fire neal just had to guess should we try and find a bootleg route or a fillin station open the nurse was dumpin out her purse lookin for an envelope and jack was out of cigarettes we crossed the yellow line the gas pumps looked like tombstones from here felt lonelier than a parking lot when the last car pulls away and the moonlight dressed the double breasted foothills in the mirror weaving outa negligee and a black brassiere the mercury was runnin hot and almost out of gas just then florence nightingale dropped her drawers and stuck her fat ass half way out of the window with a wilson pickett tune and shouted get a load of this and gave the finger to the moon countin one eyed jacks and whistling dixie in the car neal was doin least a hundred when we saw a fallin star florence wished that neal would hold her stead of chewin his cigar jack was noddin out and dreamin he was in a bar with charlie parker on the bandstand not a worry in the world and a glass of beer in one hand and his arm around a girl and neal was singin to the nurse underneath a harlem moon and somehow you could just tell we'd be in california soon @SONG: A Sight For Sore Eyes hey sight for sore eyes it's a long time no see workin hard hardly workin hey man you know me water under the bridge didya see my new car well it's bought and it's payed for parked outside of the bar and hey barkeeper what's keepin you keep pourin drinks for all these palookas hey you know what i thinks that we toast to the old days and dimagio too and old drysdale and mantle whitey ford and to you no the old gang ain't around everyone has left town 'cept for thumm and giardina said they just might be down oh half drunk all the time and i'm all drunk the rest yea monk's till the champion but i'm the best i guess you heard about nash he was killed in a crash hell that must of been two or three years ago now yea he spun out and he rolled he hit a telephone pole and he died with the radio on no she's married and with a kid finally split up with sid he's up north for a nickle's worth for armed robbery hey i'll play you some pin ball hell you ain't got a chance well then go on over and ask her to dance @SONG: Potter's Field well you can buy me a drink and i'll tell you what i seen and i'll give you a bargain from the edge of a maniac's dream that buys a black widow spider with a riddle in his yarn that's clinging to the furrow of a blindman's brow i'll start talking from the brim of a thimble full of whiskey on a train through the bronx that will take you just as far as the empty of a bottle to the highway of a scar that stretched across the blacktop of my cheek like that and then ducks beneath the brim of a fugitive's hat and you'll learn why liquor makes a stool pigeon rat on every face that ever left his shadow down on saint marks place hell i'd double cross my mother if it was whiskey that they payed and so an early bird says nightsticks on the hit parade and he ain't got a prayer and his days are numbered and you'll track him down like a dog well it's a tough customer you're getting in this trade cause the nightstick's heart pumps lemonade well whiskey keeps a blindman talkin alright and i'm the only one who knows just where he stayed last night he was in a wreckin yard in a switchblade storm in a wheelbarrow with nothing but revenge to keep him warm and a half a million dollars in unmarked bills was the nightstick's blanket in a febuary chill and as the buzzard drove a crooked sky he was dealin high chicago in the mud and stackin' the deck against a dragnet's eye a shivering nightstick in a miserable heap with the siren for a lullaby singing him to sleep he was bleeding from a buttonhole torn by a slug fired from the barrel of a two dollar gun that scorched a blister on the grip of a punk by now is learnin what you have to pay to be a hero anyhow he dressed the hole in his gut with a hundred dollar bandage a king's ransom for a bedspread that don't amount to nuttin just cobweb strings on a busted ukulele and the nightstick leaned on a black shillelagh with the poison of a junkie's broken promise on his lip he staggered in the shadows screaming i ain't never been afraid and he shot out every street light on the promenade past the frozen ham and eggers at the penny arcade throwin out handfuls of a blood stained salary they were dead in their tracks at the shootin gallery and they fired off a twenty one gun salute and from the corner of his eye he caught the alabaster orbs and from a dime a dance hall girl and stuffed a thousand dollar bill in her blouse and caught the cruel and unusual punishment of her smile and the nightstick winked beneath a rainsoaked brim ain't no one seen hide nor hair of him see no one but a spade on rikers island and me and so if you're mad enough to listen to a full of whiskey blindman then you're mad enough to look beyond where bloodhounds dare to go so if you want to know just where the nightstick's hidin out you be down at the ferry landin oh let's say bout half past a nightmare when it's twisted on a clock you tell 'em nickels sentcha whiskey always makes him talk and you ask for captain charon with the mud on his kicks he's the skipper of the deadline steamer and she sails from the bronx across the river styx and a riddle's just a ticket for a dreamer cause when the weathervane's sleepin and the moon turns his back you crawl on your belly long the railroad tracks and cross your heart and hope to die and stick a needle in your eye cause he'd cut my bleedin heart out if he found out that i squealed cause you see a scarecrow's just a hoodlum who marked the cards that he dealed and pulled a gypsy switch out on the edge of potter's field @SONG: Burma Shave licorice tattoo turned a gun metal blue scrawled across the shoulders of a dying town the one eyed jacks across the railroad tracks and the scar on its belly pulled a stranger passing through he was a juvenile delinquent never learned how to behave but the cops would never think to look in burma shave and the road was like a ribbon and the moon was like a bone he didn't seem to be like any guy she'd ever known he kinda looked like farley granger with his hair slicked back she says i'm a sucker for a fella in a cowboy hat how far are you going he said depends on what you mean he says i'm going thataway just as long as it's paved i guess you'd say i'm on my way to burma shave and her knees up on the glove compartment took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer and she popped her gum and arched her back hell marysville ain't nothing but a wide spot in the road some night my heart pounds just like thunder i don't know why it don't explode cause everyone in this stinking town has got one foot in the grave and i'd rather take my chances out in burma shave presley's what i go by why don't you change the station count the grain elevators in the rearview mirror mister anywhere you point this thing has got to beat the hell out of the sting of going to bed with every dream that dies here every mornin and so drill me a hole with a barber pole i'm jumping my parole just like a fugitive tonight why don't you have another swig and pass that car if you're so brave i wanna get there before the sun comes up in burma shave and the spider web crack and the mustang screamed smoke from the tires and the twisted machine just a nickel's worth of dreams and every wishbone that they saved lie swindled from them on the way to burma shave and the sun hit the derrick and cast a bat wing shadow up against the car door on the shot gun side and when they pulled her from the wreck you know she still had on her shades they say that dreams are growing wild just this side of burma shave @SONG: Barber Shop good mornin mr. snip snip snip witchur haircut jus as short as mine bay rum lucky tiger butch wax cracker jacks shoe shine jaw breaker magazine racks hangin round the barber shop a side burnin close crop mornin mr. furgeson what's the good word witcha been stayin outa trouble like a good boy should i see you're still cuttin hair well i'm still cuttin classes i just couldn't hep myself i got a couple of passes to the ringle bros. barn bail circus afternoon i see you lost a little round the middle and your lookin reel good sittin on the wagon stead of under the hood what's the low down mr. brown heard you boy's leavin town i just bought myself a struggle buggy suckers powder blue throw me over sports page cincinnati's lookin' good always been for pittsburgh lay you 10 to 1 that the pirates get the pennant and the series for their done you know the hair's gettin longer and the skirts gettin shorter you can get a cheaper haircut if you wanna cross the border now if your mama saw you smokin why she'd kick your ass put it out you little juvenile and put it out fast oh if i had a million dollars well what would i do probly be a barber not a bum like you still gotchur paper route now that's just fine now you can pay me double cause you gypped me last time you be keepin little circus money and spend it on a girl know i give the best haircuts in the whole wide world @SONG: Foreign Affair when travelling abroad in the continental style it's my belief one must attempt to be discreet and subsequently bear in mind your transient position allows you a perspective that's unique though you'll find your itinerary's a blessing and a curse your wanderlust won't let you settle down and you'll wonder how you ever fathomed that you'd be content to stay within the city limits of a small midwestern town most vagabonds i knowed don't ever want to find the culprit that remains the object of their long relentless quest the obsession's in the chasing and not the apprehending the pursuit you see and never the arrest without fear of contradiction bon voyage is always hollered in conjunction with a handkerchief from shore by a girl that drives a rambler and furthermore is overly concerned that she won't see him anymore planes and trains and boats and buses characteristically evoke a common attitude of blue unless you have a suitcase and a ticket and a passport and the cargo that they're carrying is you a foreign affair juxtaposed with a stateside and domestically approved romantic fancy is mysteriously attractive due to circumstances knowing it will only be parlayed into a memory