It was the time of summer lightning, you must've caught my heart off-guard,   You sent me a letter, the ink'd run in the rain, you wrote, "Our love turned out as fleeting as the smoke from a joint."   I sucked my stomach in and imagined your nipples hard      On the humpbacked bridge where some kid had scrawled "Audrey Loves Mikey 4 ever" and I wondered if forever had expired yet   You said, "It's not a lover you need, more like an exorcist."   I said, "I was just never much good at that happiness thing.   I had those baby-buggy blues at barely six months old.   But where the hell am I gonna find redemption this time of night?"   I felt a raindrop hit my wrist and trickle down into my palm      You introduced me to this guy you'd met   Maybe the love of your life, you said    Everybody said he looked like Steve McQueen   You met him at your brother's funeral   He said he got a hard-on at just the sound of your voice   But I said, "You just don't look right together, you just look strange together."   I watched my footprints in the mud fill up with rain   You sent me flowers I heard you stole from a grave      I'm driving with my knees while I light a cigarette   There's a roller-skater hanging off the back of a bus   And the wind shakes the night like it's some hussy it owns   And you're sitting close beside me in your tight black capris   And the city's lit up like a circuit-board   And the cars move round the ring-road like jewels round a noose   I said, "I love this scuzzy neighborhood, it's where I belong.   I rent a room from a poisoner that I met in the joint   We sit up half the night talking about the meaning of life   About the white-knuckle ride from birth to death   From the delivery-room to the chapel of rest."   You said, "I hate it when you take yourself for some kind of fucking saint."   I said, "Level with me, Audrey, are you really gonna marry that guy?   His ring will hit your finger like a cell-door closing."   And in dead kind of voice you said, "Why don't you just drive me home?"      Audrey got married in a turquoise dress    On a cruel and heartless sort of day   And Wonderboy wore his leg in a cast   I watched it all from a car parked down the street   Now I've found a job at a music store   Full of kids playing fuzz guitar all day   I heard God speak in a cloud of reverb   He said, "Aww, man, just let it go, it's the only way."   I met a woman called Gemma   We took a ride on the Tunnel of Love   She's with me right now, picking at a tuna melt   I know sad stuff happens, it don't mean jack shit   But I can't stop thinking 'bout Audrey   I just can't shake off Audrey   You know the time I love the best?   You know the time I hate the most?   It's the time of summer lightning   The time of summer lightning