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October in the Railroad Earth (with Steve Allen)
Lyrics
There was a little alley in San Francisco
Back of the Southern Pacific station at Third and Townsend
In red brick of drowsy lazy afternoons
With everybody at work in offices
In the air you feel the impending rush of their commuter frenzy
As soon they'll be charging en masse from Market and
Sansome buildings on foot and in busses and all well
Dressed through workingman Frisco of walkup truck drivers
And even the poor grime bemarked Third Street of lost
Bums even Negroes so hopeless and long left East
And meanings of responsibility and try
That now all they do is stand there spitting in the broken glass
Sometimes fifty in one afternoon against one wall at Third and Howard
Here's all these Millbrae and San Carlos neat neck-tied
Producers and commuters of America and steel civilization
Rushing by with San Francisco Chronicles and green
Call bulletins not even enough time to be disdainful
They've got to catch 1:30, 1:32, 1:34, 1:36 all the way up to 1:46
Till the time of evening supper in homes of the railroad earth
When high in the sky the magic stars ride
Above the following hotshot freight trains
It's all in California
It's all a sea
I swim out of it in afternoons of sunhot meditation in my jeans with
Head on handkerchief on brakeman's lantern or if not working on book
I look up at blue sky of perfect lost purity
And feel the warp of wood of old America beneath me
And I have insane conversations with
Negroes in second story windows above
And everything is pouring in
The switching moves of boxcars in that little alley which
Is so much like the alleys of Lowell and I hear far off in
The sense of coming night that engine calling our mountains
But it was that beautiful cut of clouds I
Could always see above the little S.P. alley
Puffs floating by from Oakland or the gate
Of Marin to the North or San Jose South
The clarity of Cal to break your heart
It was the fantastic drowse and drum
Hum of lummumm afternoon naathin to do
Old Frisco with end of land sadness
The alley full of trucks and cars of businesses nearabouts
Nobody knew or far from cared who I was all my life three
Thousand five hundred miles from birth all opened up
And at last belonged to me in Great America
And now it's night in Third Street
The keen little neons and also yellow bulb
Lights of impossible to believe flops
The dark ruined shadows moving back of torn yellow
Shades like a degenerate china with no money
The cats in Annie's alley
The street is loaded with darkness
Blue sky above with stars hanging high over old hotel roofs
And blowers of hotels mooning out dusts of interior
The grime inside the word in mouths is falling out tooth by tooth
The reading room's tick tock big clock with creak chair and
Slant boards and old faces looking up over rimless spectacles
Bought in some West Virginia or Florida or
Liverpool England pawnshop long before I was born
And across reigns they've come to the end of
The land sadness end of the world gladness
All your San Francisco's will have to fall eventually and burn again
But I'm walking and one night a bum fell into the hole of
The construction job where they're tearing a sewer by day
The husky Pacific & Electric youths in torn jeans who
Work there often I think of going up to some of them like
Say blond ones with wild hair and torn shirts and say
"You ought to apply for the railroad it's much easier work you
Don't stand around street all day and you get much more pay"
But this bum fell in the hole you saw his foot stick out
British MG also driven by some eccentric once backed into that hole
And as I came home from a long Saturday afternoon
Local to Hollister out of San Jose miles away
Across verdurous fields of prune and juice joy
Here's this British MG backed and legs up wheels up into a
Pit and bums and cops standing right outside the coffee shop
It was the way they fenced it but he never had the nerve to
Do it due to the fact that he had no money and nowhere to go
And oh his father was dead and oh his mother was dead and oh
His sister was dead and oh his whereabout was dead was dead
But and then at that time also I used to lay in
My room on long Saturday afternoons listening
To Jumpin' George with my fifth of Tokay no tea
And just under the sheets laugh to hear the crazy music
"Mama he treats your daughter mean"
"Mama Papa don't you come in here I'll kill you" etcetera
Getting high by myself in room glooms
And all wondrous knowing about the Negro the essential American
Out there always finding his solace
His meaning in the fellaheen street
And not an abstract morality
And even when he has a church you see the pastor
Out front bowing to the ladies on the make
You hear his great vibrant voice on the Sunday afternoon
Sidewalk full of sexual vibrato saying "Why yes ma'am
But the gospel do say that man was born of woman's womb"
By that time I come crawling out of my warm sack and hit the street
When I see the railroad ain't going to
Call me till 5 A.M. Sunday morn probably
For a local out of Bay Shore in fact
Always for a local out of Bay Shore
And I go to the whale bar of all the wild bars
In the world the one and only Third and Howard
And there I go in and drink with the madmen and if I get drunk I git
The girl who come up to me in there one
Night I was there with Al Buckle said to me
"You want to play with me tonight Jim?"
I didn't think I had enough money
And I told this to Charlie Lowe and he laughed said
"How do you know she wanted money always take the
Chance that she might be out just for love or just
Out for love you know what I mean don't be a sucker"
She was a good looking doll and she said
"How would you like to oo-ya-coo with me mon?"
And I stood there like a jerk
In fact bought drink gut drink drunk that night and in the 299 club
I was hit by the proprietor the band breaking up the fight
Before I had a chance to decide to hit
Him back which I didn't want to do anyway
And out on the street I tried to rush back in but they
Had locked the door and were looking at me through the
Forbidden glass in the door with faces like undersea
I should have played with her shoo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-kadookey