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Buy me a drink and |
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I'll tell you what |
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I seenAnd |
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I'll give you a bargain from the edge of a maniac's dream |
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That buys a black widow spider with a riddle in his yarn |
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That's clinging to the furrow of a blind man's brow |
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I'll start talking from the brim of a thimble full of whiskey |
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On a train through the |
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Bronx that will take you just as far |
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As the empty of a bottle to the highway of a scar |
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That stretched across the blacktop of my cheek like that |
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And then ducks beneath the brim of a fugitive's hat |
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You'll learn why liquor makes a stool pigeon rat on every face |
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That ever left his shadow down on |
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Saint Marks place |
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Hell, I'd double cross my mother if it was whiskey that they payed |
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And so an early bird says |
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Nightstick's on the hit parade |
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He ain't got a prayer and his days are numbered |
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And you'll track him down like a dog |
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Well, it's a tough customer, you're getting in this trade' |
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Cause the |
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Nightstick's heart pumps lemonade |
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And whiskey keeps a blind man talkin' alright |
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And I'm the only one who knows just where he stayed last night |
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He was in a wreckin' yard in a switchblade storm |
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In a wheelbarrow with nothing but revenge to keep him warm |
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And a half a million dollars in unmarked bills |
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Was the Nightstick's blanket in a |
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February chill |
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And as the buzzard drove a crooked sky |
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Beneath a black wing halo |
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He was dealin' high |
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Chicago in the mud |
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And stackin' the deck against a dragnet's eye |
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A shivering |
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Nightstick in a miserable heap |
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With the siren for a lullaby singing him to sleep |
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He was bleeding from a buttonhole |
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Torn by a slug, fired from the barrel of a two dollar gun |
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That scorched a blister on the grip of a punk by now |
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Is learnin' what you have to pay to be a hero anyhow |
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He dressed the hole in his gut with a hundred dollar bandage |
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A king's ransom for a bedspread that don't amount to nuthin' |
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Just cobweb strings on a busted ukulele |
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And the Nightstick leaned on a black shillelagh |
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With the poison of a junkie's broken promise on his lip |
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He staggered in the shadows screaming |
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I ain't never been afraid |
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And he shot out every street light on the promenade |
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Past the frozen ham and eggers at the penny arcade |
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And throwin' out handfuls of a blood stained salary |
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They were dead in their tracks at the shootin' gallery |
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And they fired off a twenty-one gun salute |
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And from the corner of his eye, he caught the alabaster orbs |
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And from a dime a dance hall girl and stuffed a thousand dollar bill |
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In her blouse and caught the cruel and unusual punishment of her smile |
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And the Nightstick winked beneath a rainsoaked brim |
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Ain't no one seen hide nor hair of him see |
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No one but a spade on |
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Riker's Island and me |
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And so if you're mad enough to listen to a full of whiskey blind man |
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Then you're mad enough to look beyond where bloodhounds dare to go |
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If you want to know just where the |
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Nightstick's hidin' out |
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You be down at the ferry landin', oh, let's say bout half past a nightmare |
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When it's twisted on a clock you tell 'em |
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Nickels sentcha |
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Whiskey always makes him talk |
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You ask for |
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Captain Charon with the mud on his kicks |
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He's the skipper of the deadline steamer |
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And she sails from the |
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Bronx across the river |
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StyxAnd a riddle's just a ticket for a dreamer' |
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Cause when the weather vane's sleepin' and the moon turns his back |
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You crawl on your belly 'long the railroad tracks |
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And cross your heart and hope to die and stick a needle in your eye' |
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Cause he'd cut my bleedin' heart out if he found out that |
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I squealed' |
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Cause you see a scarecrow, it's just a hoodlum |
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Who marked the cards that he dealed |
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And pulled a gypsy switch |
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Out on the edge of |
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Potter's Field |