9th & Hennepin

Well, it's Ninth and Hennepin All the doughnuts have names that sound like prostitutes And the moon's teeth marks are on the sky Like a tarp thrown all over this And the broken umbrellas like dead birds And the steam comes out of the grill like the whole goddamn town's ready to blow And the bricks are all scarred with jailhouse tattoos And everyone is behaving like dogs And the horses are coming down Violin Road and Dutch is dead on his feet And all the rooms they smell like diesel And you take on the dreams of the ones who have slept here And I'm lost in the window, and I hide in the stairway And I hang in the curtain, and I sleep in your hat And no one brings anything small into a bar around here They all started out with bad directions And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear One for every year he's away, she said Such a crumbling beauty Ah, there's nothing wrong with her that a hundred dollars won't fix She has that razor sadness that only gets worse With the clang and the thunder of the Southern Pacific going by And the clock ticks out like a dripping faucet Till you're full of rag water and bitters and blue ruin And you spill out over the side to anyone who will listen And I've seen it all I've seen it all through the yellow windows of the evening train --- 9th & Hennepin - Tom Waits