It was Christmas eve, babe   In the drunk tank   An old man said to me   Won't see another one      Then he sang a song   The rare 'Old Mountain Dew'   I turned my face away   And dreamed about you      Got on a lucky one   Came in eighteen to one   I had a feeling that years   For me and you      Said, "Happy Christmas   I love you, baby   I can see a better time   When all our dreams come true"      They got cars, big as bars   They got rivers of gold   But the wind blows right through you   It's no place for the old      When I first took your hand   All your fingers were blue   Well, I promised you Broadway   Was waiting for you      I was handsome, you were pretty   Queen of New York city   When the band finished playing   They howled out for more      Sinatra was swinging   All the drunks, they were singing   And we kissed on a corner   Danced through the night      And the boys of the NYPD choir   Were singing, 'Galway Bay'   And the bells were ringing out   For Christmas day      Be a bum, it was a clutter   And smell like the gutter   While sad broken promises   Lay with the trash      Every cold chilly night   We'd end up in a fight   And I'd pray as you'd yell   That as train rattled past      And the boys of the NYPD choir   Still singing, 'Galway Bay'   And the bells were ringing out   Christmas day      I could have been someone   Say, so could anyone   That I took your dreams from you   When you first found me      But I kept them with me, babe   I put them with my own   Can't make it all alone   Built my dreams around you      It's Christmas eve again   In the drunk tank   I'm an old man now   I won't see another one      So I'll sing a song   And sleep when I'm through   Dream of another life   Where all our dreams came true