Formula, Cola, Dollar Draft

There was a time when I didn't talk
I'd look away or I'd shrug it off
Tune it out or turn it off
Or say something short and soft

Out of school I took a j-o-b
Makin' buttons in a factory
Thinkin' what has life got in for me
And I didn't wanna know

In a city full of double deals
My boss would yawn and roll back on his heels
As if anyone could cop a feel
of lady luck

I was made with my brother Bill
Drinking Moskie Moons on top of Laurel Hill
Funny now I'd cheek a poison pill
to sober up

And no two-bit claim that I'm all right
Is gonna turn it around and make it right
So I'm reaching in my pocket for a light
And I'm standing on the corner on a Saturday night

I've seen pigeons flap their filthy wings
to a freezing sunset in the west
Rain shit down from their haunted perch
Above the bells of St. Someone's church
The Sexton drinks and dreams in bed
One eye in a line of light
Startled by a ghost he screams
His dead wife's name into the night

Which echoes down a cobbled hall
Bounces off a gray stone floor
Fired down a line of stairs
Where it's silenced by a door
Beyond which I am leaning, leaning,
Watching cars and dreaming
As steam rose round my body
Like my soul up to the stars

I guess the devil's had his way with the town
Now that Willie is in the ground
And I guess the devil made me this
When he gave me knowin' I can't resist
I got the bill today
Wrote back, I moved away
They called me up to say
They know that I'm still here

On the fifth day of the fifth month
At five o'clock in the dawn
I rolled myself in a t-o-p
And jumped out on Highway One
With a 400 engine hot as a cremation coffin
And a tailgate bangin like an airplane wing
I was rollin down the highway, doin it my way
whistlin' someday and singin this song