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Nighthawk Postcards
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Tom Waits
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1
b
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there's a blur drizzle down the plateglass
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as a neon swizzle stick stirrin up the sultry night air
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and a yellow biscuit of a buttery cue ball moon
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rollin' maverick across an obsidian sky
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as the busses go groanin' and wheezin',
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down on the corner I'm freezin';
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on a restless boulevard at a midnight road
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I'm across town from EASY STREET
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with the tight knots of moviegoers and out of towners
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on the stroll
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and the buildings towering high above
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lit like dominoes or black dice
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all the used car salesmen dressed up in
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Purina Checkerboard slacks
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and Foster Grant wrap-around,
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pacing in front of EARL SCHLEIB
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$39.95 merchandise
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like barkers at a shootin' gallery
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they throw out kind of a Texas Guinan routine
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"Hello sucker, we like your money
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just as well as anybody else's here"
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or they give you the P.T. Barnum bit
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"There's a sucker born every minute
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you just happened to be comin' along at the right time"
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come over here now
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you know... all the harlequin sailors are on the stroll
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in a search of "LIKE NEW," "NEW PAINT,"
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decent factory air and AM-FM dreams
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and the piss yellow gypsy cabs
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stacked up in the taxi zones waitin' like
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pinball machines
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to be ticking off a joy ride to a magical place
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waitin' in line like "truckers welcome" diners
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with dirt lots full of
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Peterbilts, Kenworths, Jimmy's and the like, and
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they're hiballin' with bankrupt brakes, over driven
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under paid, over fed, a day late and a dollar short
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but Christ I got my lips around a bottle and
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my foot on the throttle and I'm standin' on the corner
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standin' on the corner like a "just in town"
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jasper, on a street corner with a gasper lookin
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' for some kind of Cheshire billboard grin
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stroking a goateed chin, and using parking meters
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as walking sticks on the inebriated stroll
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with my eyelids propped open at half mast
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but you know... over at Chubb's Pool Hall and Snooker
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it was a nickle after two, yea it was a nickle after two
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and in the cobalt steel blue dream smoke, it
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was the radio that groaned out the hit parade
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and the chalk squeaked, the floorboards creaked
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and an Olympia sign winked through a torn yellow
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shade, old Jack Chance himself leanin' up against
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a Wurlitzer and eyeballin' out a 5 ball combination shot
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impossible you say? ...hard to believe?, perhaps
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out of the realm of possibility? naaaa
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he be stretchin' out long tawny fingers out across a
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cool green felt with a provocative golden gate
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and a full table railshot that's no sweat and I leaned
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up against my bannister and wandered over to the
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Wurlitzer and I punched A-2 I was lookin' for
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something like Wine, Wine, Wine by the Night Caps
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starring Chuck E. Weiss or High Blood Pressure
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by George (cryin' in the streets) Perkins - no dice
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"that's life," that's what all the people say ridin' high
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in April, seriously shot down in May, but I know I'm
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gonna change that tune when I'm standing underneath
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a buttery moon that's all melted off to one side
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It was just about that time that the sun
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came crawlin' yellow out of a manhole
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at the foot of 23rd Street
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and a dracula moon in a black disguise
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was making its way back to its
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pre-paid room at the St. Moritz Hotel (scat)
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and the El train came tumbling across the trestles and it sounded
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like the ghost of Gene Krupa
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with an overhead cam and glasspacks
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and the whispering brushes of wet radials
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on a wet pavement and there's a
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traffic jam session on Belmont tonight
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and the rhapsody of the pending
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evening, I leaned up against
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my bannister and I've been looking
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for some kind of an emotional
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investment with romantic dividends
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kind of a physical negociation
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is underway
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as I attempt to consolidate all my
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missed weekly payments, into
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one-low-monthly payment
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through the nose
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with romantic residuals and leg akimbo
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but the chances are more than likely I'll probably
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be held over for another smashed weekend
Tom Waits- Christmas Card from a Hooker ...
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