A box full of groceries   Rotten clothes, she's torn her knees   In the main street chill   She sleeps at night in broke-down cars   Squirts the dreams into her arms   She says, "Junkie-man, have your fill."      Well, she had friends that went abroad and do not write   She says the hardest ones are those who stay behind      CHORUS:   In the valley of the dead cars   they would end it all if they could start   They sent out their kids to wander the world   Now they can rest at last      You're out scootin' by the graveyard   and you're looking for a brave heart   Could've been your lover but you said you never gave   You have to be home early   or you'll get smacked 'round the head till bedtime   Now you hike the roads on your half-shod feet   You hump the devil, you hump the police   Criss-cross Harlem playing hide-and-seek with death      And now she lurches off as haughty as a queen   to take the waters in old Skibbereen--CHORUS      So I took her back with me to my own true place   which was a mildewed and disintegrating cottage   overlooking a disused waterfall   and we lay there in silence, fruitless silence   until just before dawn when she rolled over onto me      They come withal in their Japanese cars   They know where the good meal bargains are   and they spy by the side of the road   in the twilight, rain and storm   She juts her thumb in futile haste   Contempt to her is sweet to taste   The nuns told her, "Do not waste sensation."      When the towns are all just smoking empty shells   she will still be here doing what she does well      In the valley of the dead cars   at the mouth of a flooded mine   I will embrace you hard   and we'll wait for the sun to shine   in the valley of the dead cars   The valley of the dead cars