Don DeLillo - Great Jones Street

I worked her body with a touch
Learned from the hand of a bund old man
Living in a one-room duplex
In Nashville's Chinatown

It was love truest love
Under gun
One by one
She was the butch of New Orleans
I was her sometime beau

In those murderbeds of pimps and tricks
All those ranting nights
We took what was and left the rest
And mailed the short hairs east to west

Oh funky city Funky city oh

We loved each other with a heat
Learned from the tongue of a strung-out tout
Squatting in a two-room toilet
In Tulsa's Upper Crust

It was love animal love
Under lock
Rock by rock
She was the butch of New Orleans
I was her sometime beau

In those murderbeds of queens and marks
Sultry afternoons
We said a prayer and took a hit
And went to church to nod a bit

Oh funky city
Funky city oh

She washed my body with a grace
Learned from the rub of a burnt-out case
Locked in a padded tub
In the Memphis Steamless Baths

It was love animal love
Under key
Three by three
She was the butch of New Orleans
I was her sometime beau

In those murderbeds of cons and pros
All those summer days
We reached the end and bent the wick
And placed an ad for stamps to lick

Oh funky city
Funky city oh

We broke each other with a skill
Learned from the mind of a kindly dike
Stuck in an airless shaft
In Harlem's Lonely Heart

It was love truest love
Cannibal war
More and more
She was the butch of New Orleans
I was her sometime beau

In those murderbeds of men and wives
Final quickest trip

She took a gun, a thirty-one
Put her tongue to the bluesteel tip

Oh funky cities
Mobile's paper mills
I swim in the bay
And get laid by day
And cry for my love all the night

Protestant Work Ethic Blues

Rising up in the morning
Looking down at yourself in bed
Oh rising up in the morning
Seeing your pale old body matter-of-factually dead
Oh blue
Never too white to sing the blues

Getting yourself together
Pulling day and night apart
Oh getting yourself together
Staring hard at your laminated astrological chart
Oh blue
Never too white to sing the blues

Sitting up in your plastic chair
Swallowing down some frozen toast
Oh catching that old broken window train
Take you to the place
The place
The place
Take you to the place that you hate the most

Oh yeah

Protestant work ethic blues
You got those white collar blues

Dropping down behind your desk
Crumpled in a puddly heap
Oh dropping down behind your desk
Waiting for the strength to take that existential leap
Oh blue
Never too white to sing the blues

Falling off to sleep and weep
In your three-poster bed
Oh falling off to deep dark sleep
You find yourself wearing a mask over your original head
Oh blue
Never too white to sing the blues

Protestant work ethic blues
Tough to shake those blues

Sounds I see
Breaking through the hard light
Razor notes
Close to someone's throat
Re-ject
Is the mark along the arm
Long-play
Is the enemy

Songs I touch
Wheeling through the soft night
Tracking force
Is the way I die

It scratched out lines on my face
Test pressing time
It pained me so it pained me so
Drying out the vinyl

Sound is hard to child-bear
Skin inked black
Turning into burning thing
Circling into wordtime

Words I taste
Dripping through the knife's bite
Needle tracks
Marking up the snow
Re-volve
Is the time I have to live
Ma-trix
Is the mother-cut

Notes I play
Twinkling through the bird's flight
Tracking force
Is the way I die

They give me five hundred hours
One thousand sides
Numbering down the broken sounds
Scratching out a life

Sound is hard to child-bear
Skin inked black
Turning into burning thing
Circling into wordtime

Sounds I see
Breaking through the hard light
Razor notes
Close to someone's throat
Re-ject
Is the mark along the arm
Long-play

Is the enemy