There was a time when I didn't talk   I'd look away or I'd shrug it off   Tune it out or turn it off   Or say something short and soft      Out of school I took a j-o-b   Makin' buttons in a factory   Thinkin' what has life got in for me   And I didn't wanna know      In a city full of double deals   My boss would yawn and roll back on his heels   As if anyone could cop a feel   of lady luck      I was made with my brother Bill   Drinking Moskie Moons on top of Laurel Hill   Funny now I'd cheek a poison pill   to sober up      And no two-bit claim that I'm all right   Is gonna turn it around and make it right   So I'm reaching in my pocket for a light   And I'm standing on the corner on a Saturday night      I've seen pigeons flap their filthy wings   to a freezing sunset in the west   Rain shit down from their haunted perch   Above the bells of St. Someone's church   The Sexton drinks and dreams in bed   One eye in a line of light   Startled by a ghost he screams   His dead wife's name into the night      Which echoes down a cobbled hall   Bounces off a gray stone floor   Fired down a line of stairs   Where it's silenced by a door   Beyond which I am leaning, leaning,   Watching cars and dreaming   As steam rose round my body   Like my soul up to the stars      I guess the devil's had his way with the town   Now that Willie is in the ground   And I guess the devil made me this   When he gave me knowin' I can't resist   I got the bill today   Wrote back, I moved away   They called me up to say   They know that I'm still here      On the fifth day of the fifth month   At five o'clock in the dawn   I rolled myself in a t-o-p   And jumped out on Highway One   With a 400 engine hot as a cremation coffin   And a tailgate bangin like an airplane wing   I was rollin down the highway, doin it my way   whistlin' someday and singin this song