first impression
Well main street is skirting the disaster.
It don’t understand anymore.
Little Jesse got plastered
And he’s crawling on the bar room floor.
The east end kids continue to gamble
On the luck of the draw.
They don’t let on they understand
The human nature of God’s law.
Many things can be shown
But you can’t teach heart.
It ain't home grown.
You gotta have it from the start.
Betty Boop takes tiny steps
Tiniest steps yet.
I gape at her wake and fake
That I can forget.
Big Ike is playing second fiddle
To a cricket that begins its serenade.
Susie O. is rolling her eyes in the middle
Of three boys who think they’ve only
Been drinking pink lemonade.
Lefty Willis is pounding the drums.
He don’t need no sticks.
You can hear the Kingdom to come
In the pulsing rhythm of his fists.
And Sweet Sal is makin' love
To a saxophone that’s making blood burn.
He’s playing her like the angels above
But devils are waiting for their turn.
Many things can be shown
But you can’t teach heart.
It ain't home grown.
You gotta have it from the start.
The boys from the west end,
They are one surly lot.
They don’t speak and they secretly pretend
That they’ve seen everything that you got.
I glance sideways
Into the barman’s mirror
And see that nowadays
There’s lots of cracks in my interior.
Put there by too much bad whisky
And anything else that pours.
But you know the leaning tower of Pisa ain’t listing.
It's everything else that's crashing to the floor.
Many things can be shown
But you can’t teach heart.
It ain't home grown.
You gotta have it from the start.
I pull aside the dusty curtain.
Dawn is breaking.
I reach to pay my bill
And notice that my hand is shaking.
It don’t bother me none.
You see I don’t write checks.
Where I come from
They ain’t something that anyone would accept.
I stumble out of the bar into the morning hour.
An explosion can come when you least expect.
Two brown wings on a golden wildflower.
I never seen a butterfly that I didn’t want to pet.
I think as I turn the corner
That love can come just like that.
But I only hear a stuck car horn.
I guess it ain’t time for it yet.
Many things can be shown
But you can’t teach heart.
It ain't home grown.
You gotta have it from the start.