Cabaret Songs, Vol. 1: V. Song of Black Max (As Told by the De Kooning Boys)

He was always dressed in black

Long black jacket, broad black hat

Sometimes a cape

And as thin as rubber tape

Black Max

He would raise that big black hat

To the big shots of the town

Who raised their hats right back

Never knew they were bowing to

Black Max

I'm talking about night in Rotterdam

When the right night people of all the town

Would find what they could

In the night neighborhood

Of Black Max

There were women in the windows with bodies for sale

Dressed in curls like little girls

In little dollhouse jails

When the women walked the street

With the beds upon their backs

Who was lifting up his brim to them?

Black Max

And there were looks for sale

The art of the smile

Only certain people walked that mystery mile

Artists, charlatans, vaudevillians

Men of mathematics, acrobatics and civilians

There was knitting needle music

From a lady organ grinder

With all her sons behind her

Marco, Vito, Benno (was he strong

Though he walked like a woman)

And Carlo, who was five (he must be still alive)

Ah, poor Marco had the syph

And if you didn't take the terrible cure of those days

You went crazy and died, and he did

And at the coffin, before they closed the lid

Who raised his lid?

Black Max

I was climbing on the train

One day going far away

To the good old U.S.A

When I heard some music

Underneath the tracks

Standing there beneath the bridge

Long black jacket, broad black hat

Playing the harmonica, one hand free

To lift that hat to me

Black Max

Black Max

Black Max