all my city is dressed in skin   her lips are dark   her ankles thin   oh my dizzy ballerina, won't you give us a spin?   my country's cold in autumn's chains   every time I think of her it rains   when she breathes upon the morning   she shakes all the weather vanes      now I try to keep a steady hand   because I'm living in a shaky land   lord I try to be an honest man   but it's tougher than I ever planned   in the westbound air tonight are those centuries   my tongue-tied beheaded bride   the Alberta breeze      oh David drive like you've never done   oh Sarah sing like you've never sung   oh my dizzy ballerina spin like you've never spun   now I'm sending you a telegram   about my days in the caravan   with the steers and the bleating lambs   took the money and away I ran   I recall how the dress you wore rose above your knees   as the thrush flew from the mouth of the Alberta breeze      the summer's turned it's back on me with a sorrow-laden symmetry    with a highway kind of robbery   like my life was an apology   now I don't think about you all the time   only when the trees sway somehow slaughtered by the Alberta breeze