We bet on our lives and we bet on the horses
In that upstairs apartment
On Orlando and 4th
And the rent was due and the rent man was knocking
Like a Chinese proverb
We were always searching

Nightlife's a no-win but nobody noticed
How we killed off the bottles
Looking good on the surface
The dog days barked and the house cat got old
We were Bonnie and Clyde
In the emperor's new clothes

Oh, I'm a dark diamond
I've turned hard and cold
Once was a jewel with fire in my soul
There's two sides of a mirror
One I couldn't break through
Stayed trapped on the inside, wound up losing you

Tell me how does it work
How do you make things fit
Spent all my life trying to get it right
I've put it together and it falls apart
I thought to myself I might understand
But when the wall's built

I'll take a rainy day
To make a champagne shower
Poach some horn and tusk
To build an ivory tower

Been to Philadelphia
The day it was closed
I walked to New Orleans
Down a Louisiana road

The skeletons they hung from the bushes and the trees
But not a skull among 'em said boo to me
In a time of wine and cheap cigars
I'm on top of the world
Top of the world Ma

Look Ma no hands

Seen him playing in his backyard
Young boy just starting out
So much history in this landscape
So much confusion, so much doubt

Been there drinking on that front porch
Angry kids, mean and dumb
Looks like a painting, that blue skyline
God hates fags where we come from

'Western skies' don't make it right
'Home of the brave' don't make no sense
I've seen a scarecrow wrapped in wire

Oh, it's carnival night
And they're stringing the lights around you
Hanging paper angels
Painting little devils on the roof

Oh the furnace wind
Is a flickering of wings about your face
In a cloud of incense
Yea, it smells like Heaven in this place

I can't eat, can't sleep
Still I hunger for you when you look at me
That face, those eyes
All the sinful pleasures deep inside

There's some things I don't have now
Some things I don't talk about
These things are between myself and I
In my thick skull the joker hides

There's consequences I'm scared to taste
Cold hard truths I can't face
These days are different than the past
Reflections change in the looking glass

And everywhere I look there's something to learn
A sliver of truth from every bridge we burn

I want love, but it's impossible
A man like me, so irresponsible
A man like me is dead in places
Other men feel liberated

I can't love, shot full of holes
Don't feel nothing, I just feel cold
Don't feel nothing, just old scars
Toughening up around my heart

But I want love, just a different kind
I want love, won't break me down
Won't brick me up, won't fence me in

Some days I think it's all a dream
The things I've done, the places that I've been
This life of mine seemed surreal at times
Wasted days and nights in someone else's mind

Could it be I'm not for real
I've slapped my face to check out how I feel
There's hostages to prove it's true
Who lives behind the mask was never proved

Come on Robert Johnson
Though we're worlds apart

I'm stoned in the twilight
Screaming on the inside
Give me your water, help me survive
Gonna miss the sunlight
When I lose my eyesight

Give me my red shoes, I want to dance
They search for an answer
But that old man wouldn't listen
Back then I was handsome
Back then he was ignorant

And shave off the years now, it's all inside my head

You can take her
Make her change her name
You and your old money
Dance around the flame
But you can never, never love her like me

You can charm her
Calm her when she's wild
Show a little comfort
Play with her inner child
But you can never, never love her like me

So I just close my eyes and steal her away when you sleep
Sneak her in my dreams every single day of the week

It's a case I guess of paradise lost
Ten years back on the hands of the clock
In that little house on Mansfield
On your old block
Sometimes the magic of the past is all we've got

Just you and me at a crossroads then
Ain't it funny how we were old friends
Accidentally thrown together
Did we intend
To be the romantic novel you never want to end

You may not believe it
But I don't believe in miracles anymore
And when I think about it
I don't believe I ever did for sure
All the things I've said in songs
All the purple prose you bought from me
Reality's just black and white
The sentimental things I'd write
Never meant that much to me

I used to be the main express
All steam and whistles heading west