“This is my anti gravity song. I don’t believe in the law of gravity. I think it should be repealed. This is a song with a lot of words and I kinda have a hard time remembering it. And I never really could figure out what it was about but I sent off a copy of the lyrics to the cliff notes people and they straightened me right out. They said, ‘Stop this!'”
-Introduction from a live performance on 25 Jun 1987
“I always wanted to write a song that would leave people breathless but I been findin’ that you can’t really trust anybody but yourself so I wrote a song that would leave me breathless. Let’s see if I can remember all the words on this one.”
-Typical introduction at live gigs
Well I got joy, joy, joy, joy
Down in my heart.
I got Lucile on my mind
As Pauline pounds my private parts.
I got an old flame in the Air Force.
I’m ground zero on the charts.
I got time to think about it.
That’s where all my trouble starts.
I’m just lookin’ for some free time
From this frontal lobe lowdown.
Beggin’ for belligerent bliss.
Lookin’ for a forest in a city full of small towns.
I’m never gonna find it doin’ this.
They’re talkin’ circles at the corner bar.
The home crowd’s hypnotized.
Yarn spinners come all unravelled,
Lucile and friends anesthetized.
And there’s four riders at the jukebox
Playin’ Bad Moon on the Rise.
I buy my smokes and leave,
The disappointment welling in their eyes.
Hit the street and meet the heat.
The steamin’ pavement
Whistles past the blisters on my feet.
Pickin’ up the rhythm from
Some schoolyard statement.
Miss Mary Mack is still holdin’ down the beat.
Let’s go Geronimo and Pontiac
The medicine’s gone bad
And there aint no ten tons of C&H
Are gonna make that leopard plaid.
I’m gonna leave behind these bones of mine
All traces of the tad.
Some old peyote coyote
Howlin’ at some dreams he never had.
I’m gonna saddle up a thunderhead
And ride into the sunset.
Shower when I hit the other side.
Rumble down them canyon walls
And leave this scene an eaglet,
‘Cause gravity is one law I can’t abide.
Well there’s a river rollin’ through my mind,
Right where the highway ends.
Some days I can walk across it
But when I fall it serves to cleanse.
And I badmouth the mad wide water
Where I lost some favorite friends.
Cast my stones across a mirror
As the evening sky descends.
And all the stars are where I left ’em.
Every path is clearly chosen.
Every blazing trail is leading to my bed.
There’s seduction in the night air
And I’m on my knees proposin’
But my frozen feet head on for home instead.
Well Pauline grills me in midnight oil
And asks me where I’ve been.
I just tell her I’ve been down the road
And then I grin my foolish grin.
I sigh, she sighs, I meet her eyes
Between the smoke and gin.
And then we climb the stairs, the same old fare,
It’s rock and roll again.
“City Full of Small Towns” appeared on The Bathroom Tapes demo, 1987.
© and ℗ 1987 Marques Bovre