On the main streets and the avenues   In the condos white as knuckles bruised   With the carmine of the busy liquor bars      There's a dark and mystic beauty   To these inner-city girls   That slide by in the velvet of their cars      Through the dance halls and the shopping malls   And the subways filled with Dresden dolls   To the school of fallen angels on the ground      The whole city's just an expensive whore   A forest nymph with a pompadour   But there ain't no woman around      No, there ain't no woman around   No, there ain't no woman around   Well, I'm surrounded by these girls   But there just ain't no woman around      And the girl that fills my bed   Will hear the words I should've said   To the only true love I ever found      I'll pretend that make-up in her purse   Is a day-dream, not a curse   That comes just to kick me down   I can still taste the youth of her kiss      Maybe it's the childhood that I missed   The first time around there's a weird shape to her charms   There's a strange meat on her arms   But there ain't no woman around      No, there ain't no woman around   No, there ain't no woman around   Well, I'm surrounded by these girls   But there just ain't no woman around      Sometimes I feel I'm running   Like a fever through the night   And I've run myself straight into the ground      I miss your smile, your name   And your breath on my skin   And I'm lost and alone in this crowd      From the locks and curls and strings of pearls   To the drunk and eager, jelly girls   It's an all-day floor show Matinee in town   And it suddenly occurs that I'm surrounded by these girls   But there ain't no woman around      No, there ain't no woman around   No, there ain't no woman around   Well, I'm surrounded by these girls   But there just ain't no woman around