Tom Waits : Foreign Affairs

Muriel since you left town The clubs closed down And there's one more burned out lamp-post On 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 Is in your eye Is the only wedding ring that 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

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| Bartender, I'd like a Manhattan please

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Stop me if you've heard this one

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But I feel as though we've met before

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Perhaps I am mistaken

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But it's just that I remind you of

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Someone you used to care about

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Oh, but that was long ago

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Now tell me, do you really think I'd fall for that old line

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I was not born just yesterday

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Besides I never talk to strangers anyway Hell, I ain't a bad guy when you get to know me I just thought there ain't no harm Hey, yeah, just try minding your own business, bud Who asked you to annoy me

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With your sad, sad repartee

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Besides I never talk to strangers anyway

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Your life's a dime store novel

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This town is full of guys like you

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And you're looking for someone to take the place of her

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You must be reading my mail

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And you're bitter 'cause he left you

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That's why you're drinkin' in this bar

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Well, only suckers fall in love with perfect strangers It always takes one to know one stranger Maybe we're just wiser now Yeah, and been around that block so many times That we don't notice

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That we're all just perfect strangers as long as we ignore

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That we all begin as strangers

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Just before we find

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We really aren't strangers anymore |

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| Aw, you don't look like such a chump Aw, hey baby

Jack was sitting poker faced with bullets backed with bitches Neal hunched at the wheel putting everyone in stitches Bragging about some nurse he screwed while driving through Nebraska And when she came she honked the horn Neal just barely missed a truck And then he asked her if she'd like to come like that to California You see a red head in a uniform will always get you horny Yeah and 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 yelling out the window trying to buy some bennies From a Lincoln full of Mexicans and the left rear tire blowed And the sons of bitches pretty near almost ran us off the road And while the nurse had spilled the Maneshewitz all up and down her dress And then she lit the map on fire Neal just had to guess Should we try and find a bootleg route or a filling station open The nurse was dumping out her purse and looking for an envelope And Jack was out of cigarettes and as we crossed the yellow line The gas pumps looked like tombstones from here And it felt lonelier than a parking lot when the last car pulls away And the moonlight dressed the double breasted foothills in the mirror Weaving out a negligee and a black brassiere And the Mercury was running hot and we were almost out of gas Just then Florence Nightingale she dropped her drawers and Stuck her fat ass half way out of the window to a Wilson Pickett tune And shouted Get a load of this and gave the finger to the moon Counting one eyed Jacks and whistling Dixie in the car Neal was doing least a hundred when we saw a falling star And Florence wished that Neal would hold her instead of chewing on his cigar Jack was nodding out and wishing he was in a bar With Charlie Parker on the bandstand and not a worry in the world And a glass of beer in one hand and his arms around a girl Neal was singing to the nurse Underneath the Harlem Moon And somehow you could just tell we'd be in California soon Open up your golden gates California here I come I said California here I come Look out California here I come

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A sight for sore eyes, it's a long time no see

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Working hard hardly working, hey, man you know me

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Water under the bridge, did you see my new car

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Well, it's bought and it's paid for, parked outside of the bar

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And hey barkeep, what's keeping you? Keep pouring drinks

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For all these palookas, hey you know what I thinks

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That we toast to the old days and DiMaggio too

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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 Yeah, Monk's still the champion, but I am the best And hey barkeep... Guess you've heard about Nash, he was killed in a crash Hell, that must of been two or three years ago now Yeah, 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 pinball, no you ain't got a chance Well, then go on over and ask her to dance And hey barkeep...

Well you can buy me a drink and I'll tell you what I've 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 blind man's brow And 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 You'll learn why liquor makes a stool pigeon rat on every face That ever left a shadow down on Saint Mark's place Hell I'd double-cross my mother if it was whiskey that they paid And so an early bird says Nightstick's 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 But it's a tough customer you're getting in this trade 'Cause the Nightstick's heart pumps lemonade And whiskey keeps a blind man talking all right And I'm the only one who knows just where he stayed last night He was in a wrecking yard in a switch-blade 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 February chill And the buzzards drove a crooked sky beneath a black wing halo He was dealing high Chicago in the mud And stacking the deck against a dragnet's eye And the shivering nightstick in a miserable heap With the siren for a lullaby singing him to sleep And bleeding from a buttonhole and 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 learning 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 nothing 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 Throwing out handfuls of a blood-stained salary They were dead in their tracks at the shooting gallery And they fired off a twenty-one gun salute And from the corner of his eye he caught the alabaster orbs Of 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 rain soaked brim Ain't no one seen hide nor hair of him since No one except a spade on Riker's Island and me So if you're mad enough to listen to a full of whiskey blind man And you're mad enough to look beyond where the bloodhounds dare to go And if you want to know where the nightstick's hiding out You be down at the ferry landing oh let's say about half past a nightmare When it's twisted on the clock and you tell them nickel sent you 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 is just a ticket for a dreamer 'Cause when the weather vane is sleeping and the moon turns his back You crawl on your belly along the railroad tracks And cross your heart and hope to die and stick a needle in your eye 'Cause he'd cut my bleeding heart out if he found out that I squealed 'Cause you see a scarecrow is just a hoodlum Who marked the cards that he dealed And pulled a gypsy switch Out on the edge of Potter's Field

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A licorice tattoo, turned a gun metal blue

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Scrawled across the shoulders of a dying town

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Took the one-eyed jacks across the railroad tracks

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) And the scar on its belly pulled a stranger passing through

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He's a juvenile delinquent, never learned how to behave

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But the cops would never think to look in Burma-Shave

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The road was like a ribbon, and the moon was like a bone

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He didn't seem to be like any guy she'd ever known

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He kinda looked like Farley Grainger, with his hair slicked back

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She says, I'm a sucker for a fella in a cowboy hat

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How far are you going? He said, depends on what you mean

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He says, I'm only stopping here to get some gasoline

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I guess I'm going that-a-way just as long as it's paved

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And I guess you'd say I'm on my way to Burma-Shave

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And with her knees up on the glove compartment, took out her barrettes

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And her hair spilled out like root beer and she popped her gum and arched her back

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Hell, Marysville ain't nothing, but a wide spot in the road

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Some nights my heart pounds just like thunder, I don't know why it don't explode

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'Cause everyone in this stinking town, has got one foot in the grave

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And I'd rather take my chances out in Burma-Shave

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Presley's what I go by, why don't you change the station?

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Count the grain elevators in the rear-view mirror

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Mister, anywhere you point this thing, has got to beat the hell out of the sting

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Of going to bed with every dream that dies here every morning

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And so drill me a hole with a barber pole

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I'm jumping my parole just like a fugitive tonight

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Why don't you have another swig, and pass that car if you're so brave?

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I wanna get there before the sun comes up in Burma-Shave

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The spider web crack and the mustang screamed

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The smoke from the tires and the twisted machine

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Just a nickel's worth of dreams and every wishbone that they saved

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Lie swindled from them on the way to Burma-Shave

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And the sun hit the derrick and cast a bat wing shadow

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Up against the car door on the shotgun side

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And when they pulled her from the wreck you know she still had on her shades

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They say that dreams are growing wild just this side of Burma-Shave

Good morning mister snip snip snip With your hair cut just as short as mine Good morning mister snip snip snip With your hair cut just as short as mine Bay rum lucky tiger butch wax cracker jacks Shoe-shine jaw breaker magazine racks Hanging round the barber shop a side-burning close crop Morning Mr Ferguson what's the good word with you Staying out of trouble like a good boy should I see you're still cutting hair I'm still cutting classes I got a couple passes to the Ringle Bros barn bail circus afternoon You lost a little round the middle and you're looking real good Sitting on the wagon instead of under the hood What's the low-down Mr Brown I heard your boy's leaving town I bought myself a struggle buggy sucker's powder blue Throw me over the sports page Cincinnati looking good I always been for Pittsburgh and I lay you ten to one The Pirates get the pennant and the series before their done The hair's getting longer you know the skirts are getting shorter And don't you know that you can get a cheaper haircut If you wanna cross the border If your mama saw you smoking well she'd kick your ass Now you put it out you juvenile and put it out fast Well if I had a million dollars what would I do I'd probably be a barber not a bum like you Still got your paper route now that's just fine And you can pay me double because you gypped me last time And don't you know that you can keep a little circus money And spend it on a girl And just remember that I give the best haircuts In the whole wide world I give the best haircuts in the whole wide world Good morning mister snip snip snip With your hair cut just as short as mine Good morning mister snip snip snip With your hair cut just as short as mine

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When travelling abroad in the continental style

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It's my belief one must attempt to be discreet

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And subsequently bear in mind your transient position

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Allows you a perspective that's unique

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And though you'll find your itinerary's a blessing and a curse

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Your wanderlust won't let you settle down

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And you'll wonder how you ever fathomed that you'd be content

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To stay within the city limits of a small midwestern town

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Most vagabonds I knowed don't ever want to find the culprit

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That remains the object of their long relentless quest

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The obsession's in the chasing and not the apprehending

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The pursuit you see and never the arrest

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Without fear of contradiction "bon voyage" is always hollered

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In conjunction with a handkerchief from shore

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By a girl that drives a rambler and furthermore is overly

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Concerned that she won't see him anymore

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Planes and trains and boats and buses, characteristically

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Evoke a common attitude of blue

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Unless you have a suitcase and a ticket and a passport

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And the cargo that they're carrying is you

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A foreign affair juxtaposed with a stateside

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And domestically approved romantic fancy

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Is mysteriously attractive due to circumstances knowing

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It will only be parlayed into a memory |

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Tom Waits : Foreign Affairs
1977

Muriel

I Never Talk To Strangers

Medley: Jack And Neal/California, Here I Come

A Sight For Sore Eyes

Potter's Field

Burma-Shave

Barber Shop

Foreign Affair

Tom Waits : Foreign Affairs 1977

Muriel

I Never Talk To Strangers

Medley: Jack And Neal/California, Here I Come

A Sight For Sore Eyes

Potter's Field

Burma-Shave

Barber Shop

Foreign Affair

Tom Waits : Foreign Affairs
1977