1.The Garfield El
Faster, hammers
Faster, hammers
Churn and turn into my late train to my lost love
Ring away today, stick, bruise into my felt, or so I felt
I found a skeleton tooth in the junk drawer
And I mean to open the folding green and white door
And take a late train to my lost love.
Faster, hammers!
Faster, hammers!
Listen to those dead pianos, pins stuck in their hearts
Clang tap bell pedal down dead wood chipped and dull dark steel
Rattling and chattering and chilly on a damp November afternoon
On tracks one and two
And twelve and thirteen
On that ribbon spinning and computer colors.
Tick tacks on round wire
Spun steel spark on three rail thin lines
See a minor, a little girl
Ask if she would like for instance some fudge
But I didn't budge, and said I didn't care
I wanted to sit, and I wanted to stare
Spin steel, tick tack on three little strings made three little
rails made one note clunk
Three rails squeaking and sputtering down the west side
I found a skeleton tooth in the junk drawer and I mean to open
the folding green and white door
And take a late train to my lost love
Faster, hammers!
Faster, hammers!
Chatter down the tracks, you thumb tack smiley skull teeth
Ticking five dollar throwaway pianos past
A late train to my lost love
Listen to those dead pianos, pins stuck in their hearts
Clang tap bell pedal down dead wood chipped and dull dark steel
Rattling and chattering and chilly on a damp November afternoon
On tracks one and two
And twelve and thirteen
On that ribbon spinning and computer colors.
Tick tacks on round wire
Spun steel spark on three rail thin lines
Late, by act of Congress and blue all the way to Forest Park,
And this ribbon spinning and computer color
Into a public transport for everyone to hear and get on track
And back to my lost love
Faster, hammers!
Faster, hammers!
We're almost there
Faster, hammers!
We're almost there
I'd like to tell you a story, kids
but instead I'll change the subject
Listen to this tune, it sounds like a condolence card
Bought at the last minute for someone you can't stand
For someone you never liked
And isn't it cute
La la la...
Listen to this tune I'm playing now, kids
Does it seem sad
Does it remind you of when
2.The Wayward Granddaughter
He said 'Come on now babe
Let's take a little drive
Go slumming down the Carson's in my black X-5.'
Samples from the Clinique counter and up the escalator
And then a knowing glance from last night's cute, talkative
waiter
Surprise, surprise
Going through five hundred king Egyptian size count satin cotton
sheets
A smirk hello from the tanning salon boy
My man mumbled, he realized
'They told me that she cheats.'
'Oh, don't you start! Jealous heart.'
Jealous heart. Jealous heart
I put one foot forward and one foot back
My hand upon my hip
I gave my hair a flip
I can't help it
What's he think I got all this loving for
Well guess what
He don't pay my bills no more
Well I guess
All this stuff
That'll befall ya and bedevil ya
And try ya
I'll move back in with Yaiyai
My daughter, we named her Maureen
Can you believe it
I never believed it, or her
Because she called you Connie
The Don Juan he, my husband, loved redheards and thought this
name
Would turn his baby into the same
And each time I see you, Connie
Yes？
I say God bless, my dear departed Peter
That he never had to meet her
His beautiful granddaughter who dyed
It would have killed him again
Her gorgeous red-brown hair black
When she turned 15 behind my back
You lived with me at that time
Yes, I did
You were such a cute and smart and obedient and happy and pretty
little kid
My beautiful granddaughter who dyed
Her gorgeous red-brown hair black
When she turned fifteen behind my back
And which Kevin were you dating
I mean letting take advantage of you then
the black one, or the white one
Once upon a time there were two Kevins
You mean two jerks
Once upon a time there were two Kevins
And being with one Kevin was being in one heaven
And not being with the other swell was being in another, well
Kevin and Kevin were best friends since seven
La la la-la-la la la
When they met at Joey Meyer's
Red White and Blue Demon basketball seminar tutorial clinic day
care camp
For underprivileged kids
And overstimulated brats.
And they're both wearing vintage throw-back fourty five dollar
Nineteen eighty three White Sox hats
And now at H-F
Point guard and shooting guard
And now at H-F
Point guard and shooting guard
And the drill team shouting themselves deaf
And then back in the back yard
Yours, Yaiyai
With the one and then the next night with the other one and one
big secret
I mean two
But little did I know that they knew
They knew
And would slap each other on the back
About what it was they'd do
They knew
They knew
Well, we can talk about it, Connie
But often, memories are better off sung
Remember when you were young
Remember when I was young
Remember when you were young
Remember when I was young
La la la...
La la la...
3.A Candymaker's Knife in my Handbag
A night out in the tropics
Turned out I couldn't cope
After the School of Fancy Cookery
With Antoinette Pope
I learned brazing and saucing, meringue and sift
Knead, flute and flour
Each Thursday for an hour
Cobblers and plum cakes, tarts savory and sweet
A candymaker's knife in my handbag
A candymaker's knife in my handbag
Well I learned brazing and saucing, meringue and sift
Knead, flute and flour
Each Thursday for an hour
Cobblers and plum cakes, tarts savory and sweet
A candymaker's knife in my handbag
A candymaker's knife in my handbag
That night I was to meet my husband's father, for the very first
time
I wore the scarf he sent to me
French silk, scarlet blue and cream
He sits, he waits, a coffee on his knee
I wonder if it's as bad as it might seem
Zapped by the Zombie
Zapped, zapped by the Zombie
Zapped by the Zombie in the two-door Dodge
Twice-baked brioche and pastry pockets
And lock its two-door Dodge
Zapped by the Zombie
Zapped, zapped by the Zombie
Zapped by the Zombie in the two-door Dodge
And I did not fail
To bust off a nail as the Dodge door handle dodges my hand
Delicate, delicate hold my hand
Delicate nectarine upside-down chiffon cake
Dodge down the downtown loop the loop lightly
Hazelnut baby loaves
Hazelnut baby loaves
Hold my hand inside-out upside-down marzipan Milanese
My brain is a blur
Hodge-podge - cardinal slice - two-door, brand new
What am I gonna do
'Cause on the street the amber lights were hellish hot
And the wind in the windows was not giving air
And tropical Napeolons
But it was too late and I didn't care
And I didn't care
Because first I went to meet Dr. Christopolous and his wife
Claudette
Who at the time was my close girlfriend
They picked my up in their brand-new Dodge
And we went to Trader Vic's, or Mr. Rick's
And I ordered, like the others, a Zombie
And it bombed me, it just bombed me
And when we got to the stoop my father-in-law said 'Were you
attacked？'
My aunt, being helpful, said something that made my heart just
go sunk
And with a look on her face like something had stunk
'She's just drunk!' she hissed
I reached for the arm of the armchair and missed
A night out in the tropics
Turned out I couldn't cope
After the School of Fancy Cookery
With Antoinette Pope
I wore the scarf he sent to me
French silk, scarlet blue and cream
He sits, he waits, a coffee on his knee
I wonder if it's as bad as it might seem
4.We Wrote Letters Everyday
Well, no one was too upset
You know we were married in the war
And I went with him to Pennsylvania and California
But he went out the Pacific
And I came back to Chicago to work on the railroad
And we wrote letters every day
Which were later thrown away
And God knows what we wrote or what they said
But this is probably how they read
I left the letters behind
In the basement of the apartment building when we moved
For the mice to nibble on
I wonder how long they lasted
And we wrote letters every day
Which were later thrown away
And God knows what we wrote or what they said
But this is probably how they read
Now, at my wedding, my husband didn't have his close family
there as I indicated
He came from a family of priests
At least, there were a lot of priests in his family
And so, eight priests presided over our wedding
Eight priests, it looked impressive
But it didn't sound very good
A gaggle of priests
Or they were like crows around an overly ornate park bench up
there
They all had fine voices
But, and I mean this respectfully
They didn't match pitch
Thinking that each one of them was the one in the right
So they made some strange note choices
Listen...
5.Forty Eight Twenty Three Twenty Second Street
Now, as for my aunt
Who told on me
She was always wearing her turbans
Sailing back to Greece on the Normandy
Having dinner at the captain's table
Sitting on the deck with 5 men surrounding her
With uncle Sam in the back row
Back at home, riding up the Taygetus on a donkey named David
With her soft leather boots dangling off to the side
So full of pride
So full of pride.
Profitis Elias, so high you can see us
4823 22nd St., standing there with cashmere overcoats
And those turbans with their Arabian silver
And ostrich and papagou feather hats
And not far down from our koumbaros Betinis
We've got a secret between us Betinis
In the back of the Hawthorne smoke shop
In the basement of the hat factory
The fedoras got glued together
But in that back basement...
In that back basement, a lot of things got sewn up!
A full compliment of grinchy Italians
Counting up on their stubby fingers, and smoking, I'm told
The least sophisticated cigars
The local lottery and so forth
Like anybody was going to get a nit out of that nut
Though what a lucky loser is our five thousand dollars a day
friend and koumbaros Betinis
We've got a secret between us, Betinis
In the back of the Hawthorne smoke shop,
Haberdashery was the least of it
In the basement of the hat factory
The fedoras got glued together
But in that back basement...
In that back basement, a lot of things got sewn up
We've got a secret between us, Betinis.
Five thousand dollars a day
Five thousand dollars a day
Five thousand dollars a day
Five thousand dollars a day
In the basement of the hat factory
The fedoras got glued together
But in that back basement
In that back basement, a lot of things got sewn up!
We've got a secret between us, Betinis
Not that nobody knows, like nobody knows about the white doves
that flew out the cake at the brother's wedding
In your hat factory, Betinis, they count up all the buffalo
nickels
And silver certificates wrung from Lake Superior spirits
And prize fight foolery, and sluts speaking easy in the closets
on 12th St.
And in exchange you put in your pants $5,000 a day to stick
under your bed for starters
But later in the laundry, so you can feel free to chase your
wife around the table
When you feel she looked at the apricot and boysenberry boy
twice
6.Guns Under the Counter
'Well, good for you.
But we have something too.'
So said my aunt
A bowling alley and lunch counter
Filled with fellas on their lunch break
From the Western Electric plant at a slant across the street
And next door when So-and-So's men would come in, and the man
himself very often
It was guns under the counter every time
Guns under the counter every time
Guns under the counter every time
And bowling on the second floor
Very often he was there himself
And I, of course, had a special small ball as a little girl,
And didn't I grow up, didn't I grow up to be captain of the
Morton girls bowling team？ I did!
Though I don't attach much importance to that now, or then
Then riding the old Garfield El downtown
And on up to State Street
And back to guns under the counter
Guns under the counter every time
Guns under the counter
And bowling on the second floor
I never liked Douglas park
And no one likes it now
But that's neither here nor there
There, or here
West of Crawford, where it is I stayed
Chicago straights alliterates
North, and south
I lived in the Ms
But it was down on the south side
Dr. Peter Pane and his brother had their doughnut factory
And I mention it now because
That one day
Now I wasn't there, we were in Davenport at that time
Some north side Irish bullets came zipping through that window
In Cicero
Never stand at a window
And past the counter
Looking for those men
Who had their guns behind the counter
And you could smell the boiled cabbage on those bullets
One of them managed to hit a young pinsetter in the leg
Wouldn't you know it
But luckily Panagoulis
Dr. Peter Pane
Was there to see to it
He took some special blackberry filling right out of his lunch
bag
And applied it to the young man's wound
You see, Dr. Peter Pane was an interesting man
And an even more interesting doctor
As he would use no material or remedy that wasn't used in the
manufacture
Of his doughnuts down on 82nd and Kedzie with his brother.
But he tempered this by the fact that he would rarely use
ingredients
That didn't have some medicinal purpose
Or so he thought
Here in the doughnut factory
They have confectioner's sugar
So sweet it was caustic
And chocolate so bitter that it could kill typhus
Glazing so shiny
It could set back glaucoma
And filling so filling,
You didn't need stitches
The same special blackberry filling that was applied to the
young man's wound
Blackberry filling that came straight from Dr. Peter Pane's
lunch bag
We were in Davenport
With a big restaurant downtown
And I once kept a jackrabbit in the back yard
And I'd walk across the river to Rock Island to Greek school
On a fine fall day
And I'd look up at the sky
And down at the river
But Davenport changed its name to Hooverville
So to speak, and we had to go to Chicago to move in with my aunt
7.Seven Silver Curses
My little sister had a glass of wine
No doubt a glass of wine too many
'I bet he's out right now with his Nazi whore
That's right, I said it, that's what she is, and when he
Finally saunters back at three or four,
Don't let him in, put the chain on the door.'
But of course I'd let him in, the jerk.
Now my silly little sister went to some vlachos coffee-grind
reader
Ad had a gypsy glint in her eye when she'd smirk
'Since that's how you feel, I know what to do
Make sure she gets fixed before she takes him from you.'
It's a hot August night and my sister and I are creeping down
south Halsted
Towards a storefront past a storefront stoop and a moon
And a star and a placard that says Madame Maria's.
'Tell me your troubles,
But five dollars first.'
That's what she said
And of course, I thought the worst
Charlatan, phony
Fraud gypsy bitch whose Greek was bad and English was worse
I held tight to my purse
My sister did the talking and I looked down
And tapped my foot and sort of twisted on one heel.
Madame pointed to corner
And twisted her shawl,
Uncovered a dusty old crystal ball
I peered in despite myself
Somewhere on some love seat, my husband was there
Paying court to his mistress and stroking her hair
I saw it for myself
'I can't believe it!' I cried
Madame Maria said, 'Well, I had a notion
So before you came in, I prepared half a potion
Now you must do the other half
I wrote you a list
You must get seven part-silver curses made special out of bullet
bits by some Pollock I know in Evergreen Park
And dip them in the potion and drop them in Buckingham Fountain
at 3：13 on Friday morning
And then she'll be gone, you'll be rid of her!'
Quick, for the potion, we have to get three dozen crabapples
that fell off a raggedy old tree right in the southwestern
corner of Columbus Park!
Faster, we have to go up to Caputo's Produce and Fruit Market on
Harlem and get the garden snake that lives in the banana bin!
Hurry, we have to get the mercury out of the old thermometer
they have through the north-facing doors
To the left by the shoe-shine boys in the lobby of the Monadnock
building!
And don't be late, for you must get the silver out of the teeth
of one George Karmalitis
Who as we speak lies dead under a dirty wool blanket in the
basement of the morgue of Laretto hospital
The silver teeth of a man killed by a jealous wife!
I wasn't always an old maid
I didn't always walk down the street
And have the children yell at me Spinny Spinny the Spinster
And try to knock the hat off my head
I had a fiancee, or he led me to believe I'd soon be his fiancee
And I did believe him, as I had every right to
And I'd put on my best dress and we'd go dance at all the dances
And I'd never let the boys from the barracks cut in
They'd come out of Great Lakes, usually straight off the farm
anyway
And I'd never really let any of the country club beaus get a
chance
Those cream-colored summer suits were never cut to my taste
anyhow
And those Hyde Park fraternity fellas were out as a matter of
course
I don't enjoy a man in red, so certainly not maroon, that's for
sure
I only had eyes for my guy, see
But one night he had said he wouldn't be able to take me
As he hurt his shoulder and had his arm in a sling
But I went anyway and saw him with another woman
And she was wearing his ring
The silver still smelled and smelted down quick into the copper
or lead or whatever else it was
And when the metal was still soft and hot you'd engrave the
curse into it with a stylus from an old whale bone
I thought for a second of what I might write
Something a little different, but with the correct sort of spite
One of them asked panayia mou to make that blonde's hair fall
straight out
The potion was ready back at my apartment
And my sister and I mumbled and crossed ourselves when we
dropped the curses in
And I thought of my husband
My husband and her
And I thought of me and him, of what we were
I thought of our wedding day
And I was happy, very simply happy
Do you hear it
A modest young woman's simple contentment
It's probably a sunny day, and I think it was
The birds were chirping
And I felt like I was dancing on air
But not very far off the ground
I wonder if I knew even then that things wouldn't always be
perfect
That one day he'd seek solace in the arms of another woman
And that to win him back, to win him back, I'd have to do this
3：11!, 3：12!, 3：13!
On a hot August night everyone is asleep
But the crows were watching, witching and my temple was
twitching
Twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch
Fountain, sweet fountain
Fountain, sweet fountain
Let your water react and turn the curses to fact and come true
Fountain, sweet fountain
Fountain, sweet fountain
Let your water react and turn the curses to fact and come true
And they do
The instant we dropped them in, our hearts started to race
And a wind came up off the lake; make no mistake, we felt
something released out into the city
And I swore
And I swooned
As I swept back somehow to Austin, I don't remember how
Scared of what I had wrought
But terrified, I didn't get what I had sought
Oh Jimmy, where you been so long
Oh Jimmy, where you been so long
Oh Jimmy, where you been so long
Oh Jimmy, where you been so long
Oh Jimmy, where you been so long
Oh Jimmy, where you been so long
And as the clock struck eight the next morning
My husband was next to me with a smile on his face
And I looked, no blond hairs on his pajamas
And it was as if I had been awakened from a bad dream
8.Though Let's Be Fair
Though let's be fair
I had other loves before my husband
Other sweethearts
Tom Kitsos, for instance
And another I won't mention
I loved him truly, or so I thought
Turned out in another snare he'd been caught
They were to get married that June
And all the relatives
From New Hampshire and Harrisburg, were coming
And the day I heard, I went home
And closed the door to my room
And I laid down on my bed
And I may have cried
Very briefly
I watched and wondered if they would last
I tried to tell myself 'put it in the past,'
And that June
As I was the organist at our church, didn't you know
I was up in the choir loft, looking down
On all their friends and relations
Playing as they walked down the aisle
I'd see him 'round some
We'd nod and smile
I couldn't decide if I was still in love with him
After all this while
I'd see them together at church
And they'd look sort of grim
It didn't seem as though she was happy with him
9.Slavin' away
Slavin' away
All for you my love
And i've nothin to show for it
Cept my dusty old book full of pictures
A dusty old book
Tell me a story
Bout how i wasn't so tired
From my slavin' away
I ran off
Put on corduroy knickers that i got from the coal shovelin' kid
And hitchhiked in a rickety old ford
Hitchhiked in a rattly old norton side car
Down strange roads
In the purrin' rain, as the poet put it
On up to st. Paul
On a cold day in the middle of the fall
And they picked me up for not wearin a dress
And suspended my sentence
If i wore somethin with a strap that was pink
And i scrubbed up on somebody's sink
So now i catch the canadian pacific
And not be too specific, just somewhere up north
And get into lumber and slumber when i like
And in the spring ride down into cheyenne on my bike
I looked out the window
And i stuck my head out the door
And the snow was melting so slow...
And the sky was light but so gray...
Slavin' away
And all for nothin' my love
Cookin and washin in the morning
And startin at 9：25
I assemble six boxes of little plastic christmas trees
And put in the blue leds
On kid toy cell phones with borg batteries
And then on to the sewing machine
Stick the labels on purple t-shirts
And the arms on pull-over jumpers for the uk
Slavin' away
All for you my love
And i've nothin to show for it
I've nothin to show for it
I could see her lookin in the mirror at me
Wonderin' if it wasn't plain for everyone to see
Nothin ever seemed to turn out how it might be
I could see her doubting now that all had gone and went
That anything she got was equal what that she'd spent
That she never seemed to get back what that she'd lent
Anyway they did have a son
And by the time he was married and i played at his wedding too
at holy trinity
I was choir director myself
Rehearsals in the basement twice a week
I demanded we'd be in peak condition
And everything seemed to be going quite well
I got along well with the priest...
10.Rehearsing my choir
But there was one other man with whom i didn't get along
The bishop
Would head down, head down to deerport station
To see what stars on the silver screen might be seen
Or broadway stage were all the rage
With his black leather autograph book
And his black leather pastoral pumps
And his pressed black robes
And his tidy black beard of which he was so proud
And his hat that stuck out in a crowd
But there he'd sit
At his table at the edgewater hotel
Wearing his ecclesiastical furs
And lunching with two giggly and none too healthy looking young
men
And in his shirt pocket up close to his heart was his
autographed picture of robert mitchum
Which he no doubt used in an impure way
And i was at home rehearsing my choir
On christmas day
In the afternoon
I got a call at home
The bishop was on the phone
Wanting the choir to go and sing
On some channel 44 thing
And i said 'out of the question!
The rest of the day is for their families!'
And the bishop became furious
All that time singing western music
Christmas carols, backsliding
And no time to represent the diocese
But of course he was just upset because he wanted to be on the
show
And he hated women
And i knew he was angry with me
But i couldn't worry about it
I went about my business
Rehearsing my choir
Rehearsing my choir
(da da da da da da da)
Again!
(da da da da da da da)
Ugh, altos, out of tune!
(da da da da da da da)
That's not good!
(da da da da da da da)
That sounds horrible
Next sunday was my late sister's namesday
La la la
And the bishop was coming that day to our church to deliver a
sermon
Which would give me quite a big surprise
'Decadence in the church!
Betrayal of our traditions!
Look up in the shoir loft, for instance, the lady in red
Eva!
I ban her from receiving communion
And remove her as choir director!'
I couldn't believe my ears
And the congregation couldn't believe theirs
And my husband was furious when he was told, as he wasn't there
at the time
And letters were written and phone calls were placed
And the matter was taken up, and i was granted an audience
And i sat there nervous and frightened
When into the room
Stepped his eminence
The archbishop
They had a strange deliberating process at his initiative
As it was his prerogative alone
But the hierarch with the tallest hat and longest beard would
stand in the middle
And the prelates with shorter hats and beards radiated out
With the archbishop in front of them
And then they began to intone
And i was left on the other side of the door, alone
And when they came out, bishop nikolaki was sent to San Jose
11.Does it Remind You of When
How the years have gone
It's come to this
A rose on his lapel, in the open coffin I'd give him a kiss
I have to go up north to play at his funeral
And his wife is there
In some chapel she's picked out
And there's not even an organ
I have to play on some broken upright piano
Listen to these low notes
What a joke
And you have to park and you couldn't even hear the ceremony in
the cemetery
because the noise from the traffic and construction is so
terrible
And I stood there in the slush
And I walked along, very slowly
To the tree by the turn
And I went in front of my mother and father and sister and
husband's graves
And looked over to the sun setting to the right
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock
And I thought of myself
And I thought of them
In the cold hard ground
You still can't believe
You still can't believe
I didn't believe it then
And I don't believe it now
I didn't believe it then
And I don't believe it now
I didn't believe it then and I don't believe it now
But there it is
Listen to this tune I'm playing for you now, kids
Does it seem sad
Does it remind you of when
Shady grave
Come the summer it will be
Shady grave
Come the summer it will be
Well I can hear the cars just
A hundred feet behind
And I smell the rock salt in the air
And I know in my bones it isn't fair
And the sun sets in the sleet to the side
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