Rattle Big Black Bones in the Danger zone there's a rumblin'
groan down below there's a big dark town it's a place I've
found there's a world going on UNDERGROUND they're alive, they're
awake while the rest of the world is asleep below the mine shaft
roads it will all unfold there's a world going on UNDERGROUND all
the roots hang down swing from town to town they are marching
around down under your boots all the trucks unload beyond the gopher
holes there's a world going on UNDERGROUND
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Well with buck shot eyes and a purple heart I rolled down the national
stroll and with a big fat paycheck strapped to my hip sack and a shore
leave wristwatch underneath my sleeve in a Hong Kong drizzle on Cuban
heels I rowed down the gutter to the Blood Bank and I'd left all my papers
on the Ticonderoga and was in a bad need of a shave and so I slopped at
the corner on cold chow mein and shot billards with a midget until the
rain stopped and I bought a long sleeved shirt with horses on the
front and some gum and a lighter and a knife and a new deck of cards (with
girls on the back) and I sat down and wrote a letter to my wife
and I
said Baby, I'm so far away from home and I miss my Baby so I can't make it
by myself I love you so
Well I was pacing myself trying to make it
all last squeezing all the life out of a lousy two day pass and I had a
cold one at the Dragon with some Filipino floor show and talked baseball
with a lieutenant over a Singapore sling and I wondered how the same moon
outside over this Chinatown fair could look down on Illinois and find
you there and you know I love you Baby
and I'm so far away from
home and I miss my Baby so I can't make it by myself I love you
so
Shore Leave... Shore Leave...
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[Instrumental]
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She's my only true love she's all that I think of look here in my
wallet that's her She grew up on a farm there there's a place on my
arm where I've written her name next to mine you see I just
can't live without her and I'm her only boy and she grew up outside
McHenry in Johnsburg, Illinois
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I plugged 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six and a Black Crow
snuck through a hole in the sky so I spent all my buttons on an old
pack mule and I made me a ladder from a pawn shop marimba and I leaned
it up against a dandelion tree
And I filled me a sachel full of old
pig corn and I beat me a billy from an old French horn and I kicked
that mule to the top of the tree and I blew me a hole 'bout the size of
a kickdrum and I cut me a switch from a long branch
elbow
Chorus I'm gonna whittle you into kindlin' Black Crow 16
shells from a thirty-ought-six whittle you into kindlin' Black Crow 16
shells from a thirty-ought-six
Well I slept in the holler of a dry
creek bed and I tore out the buckets from a red Corvette, tore out the
buckets from a red Corvette Lionel and Dave and the Butcher made three you
got to meet me by the knuckles of the skinnybone tree with the strings of a
Washburn stretched like a clothes line you know me and that mule scrambled
right through the hole
Repeat Chorus
Now I hold him prisoner in
a Washburn jail that stapped on the back of my old kick mule strapped
it on the back of my old kick mule I bang on the strings just to drive him
crazy I strum it loud just to rattle his cage strum it loud just to rattle
his cage
Repeat Chorus
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Well it's hotter 'n blazes and all the long faces there'll be no oasis
for a dry local grazier there'll be no refreshment for a thirsty
jackaroo from Melbourne to Adelaide on the overlander with newfangled
buffet cars and faster locomotives the train stopped in Serviceton less and
less often There's nothing sadder than a town with no cheer VicRail
decided the canteen was no longer necessary there no spirits, no bilgewater
and 80 dry locals and the high noon sun beats a hundred and four there's a
hummingbird trapped in a closed down shoe store
This tiny Victorian
rhubarb kept the watering hole open for sixty five years now it's boilin'
in a miserable March 21 st wrapped the hills in a blanket of Patterson's
curse the train smokes down the xylophone there'll be no stopping
here all ya can be is thirsty in a town with no cheer no Bourbon, no
Branchwater though the townspeople here fought the Vic Rail decree tooth
and nail now it's boilin' in a miserable March 21 st wrapped the hills in
a blanket of Patterson's curse the train smokes down the
xylophone there'll be no stopping here all ya can be is thirsty in a town
with no cheer
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Well the eggs chase the bacon round the fryin' pan and the whinin'
dog pidgeons by the steeple bell rope and the dogs tipped the garbage
pails over last night and there's always construction work bothering
you In the neighborhood In the neighborhood In the
neighborhood
Friday's a funeral and Saturday's a bride Sey's got a
pistol on the register side and the goddamn delivery trucks they make too
much noise and we don't get our butter delivered no more In the
neighborhood In the neighborhood In the neighborhood
Well Big
Mambo's kicking his old grey hound and the kids can't get ice
cream 'cause the market burned down and the newspaper sleeping
bags blow down the lane and that goddamn flatbed's got me pinned in
again In the neighborhood In the neighborhood In the
neighborhood
There's a couple Filipino girls gigglin' by the
church and the windoe is busted and the landlord ain't home and Butch
joined the army yea that's where he's been and the jackhammer's
diggin' up the sidewalks again In the neighborhood In the
neighborhood In the neighborhood
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[Instrumental]
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Well Frank settled down in the Valley and hung his wild years on a
nail that he drove through his wife's forehead he sold used office
furniture out there on San Fernando Road and assumed a $30,000 loan at
15 1/4 % and put down payment on a little two bedroom place his wife was a
spent piece of used jet trash made good bloody marys kept her mouth shut
most of the time had a little Chihuahua named Carlos that had some kind of
skin disease and was totally blind. They had a thoroughly modern
kitchen self-cleaning oven (the whole bit) Frank drove a little
sedan they were so happy
One night Frank was on his way home from
work, stopped at the liquor store, picked up a couple Mickey's Big
Mouths drank 'em in the car on his way to the Shell station, he got a
gallon of gas in a can, drove home, doused everything in the house,
torched it, parked across the street, laughing, watching it burn, all
Halloween orange and chimney red then Frank put on a top forty
station got on the Hollywood Freeway headed north
Never could stand
that dog
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Well he came home from the war with a party in his head and
modified Brougham DeVille and a pair of legs that opened up like butterfly
wings and a mad dog that wouldn't sit still he went and took up with a
Salvation Army Band girl who played dirty water on a
swordfishtrombone he went to sleep at the bottom of Tenkiller lake and
he said "gee, but it's great to be home."
Well he came home from the
war with a party in his head and an idea for a fireworks display and he
knew that he'd be ready with a stainless steel machete and a half a pint
of Ballentine's each day and he holed up in room above a hardware
store cryin' nothing there but Hollywood tears and he put a spell on
some poor little Crutchfield girl and stayed like that for 27
years
Well he packed up all his expectations he lit out for
California with a flyswatter banjo on his knee with a lucky tiger in his
angel hair and benzedrine for getting there they found him in a eucalyptus
tree lieutenant got him a canary bird and shaked her head with every
word and Chesterfielded moonbeams in a song and he got 20 years for lovin'
her from some Oklahoma governor said everything this Doughboy does is
wrong
Now some say he's doing the obituary mambo and some say he's
hanging on the wall perhaps this yarn's the only thing that holds this man
together some say he was never here at all
Some say they saw him down
in Birmingham, sleeping in a boxcar going by and if you think that you
can tell a bigger tale I swear to God you'd have to tell a lie...
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He went down down down and the devil called him by name he went
down down down hangin' onto the back of a train he went down down
down this boy went solid down always chewed tobacco and the bathtub
gin always chewed tobacco and the bathtub gin he went down down
down this boy went solid down he went down
Well he went down down
down and the jumped on his head he went down down down stayin' in a
broken down shed he went down down down sleepin' in the devil's bed he
went down down down never listened to the words I said he went down down
down down he went down
Well he went down down down and the devil
said where you been he went down down down he screamin' down around the
bend down down down this boy went solid down
He was always
cheatin' and he always told lies he was always cheatin' and he always
told lies he went down down down down down down this boy went solid
down he went down
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Davenports and kettle drums and swallow tail coats table cloths and
patent leather shoes bathing suits and bowling balls and clarinets and
rings and all this radio really needs is a fuse a tinker, a tailor a
soldier's things his rifle, his boots full of rocks and this one is for
bravery and this one is for me and everything's a dollar in this
box
Cuff links and hub caps trophies and paperbacks it's good
transportation but the brakes aren't so hot neck tie and boxing
gloves this jackknife is rusted you can pound that dent out on the
hood a tinker, a tailor a soldier's things his rifle, his boots full of
rocks oh and this one is for bravery and this one is for me and
everything's a dollar in this box
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I got a belly full of you and that Leavenworth stuff now I'm gonna
get out And I'm gonna get tough you been lying to me How could you
crawl so low with some gin-soaked boy that you don't know
I come
home last night full a filth of Old Crow you said you goin' to your
ma's but where the hell did you go you went and slipped out nights you
didn't think that I'd know with some gin-soaked boy that you don't
know
Well I would bet you as far as Oklahoma by now the dogs are
barking out back and you're knittin' your brow well I'm on your tail I
sussed your M.O. from some gin-soaked boy boy that you don't
know
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Well I pulled on trouble's braids and I hid in the briars out by
the quick mud stayin' away from the main roads passin' out wolf
tickets downwind from the blood hounds and I pulled on trouble's
braids and I lay by a cypress as quiet as a stone 'til the bleeding
stopped I blew the weather vane off some old road house I build a fire
in the skeleton back seat of an old Tucker and I pulled on trouble's
braids I spanked cold red mud where the hornet stung deep and I tossed
in the ditch in a restless sleep and I pulled on trouble's braids I
hung my rain-soaked jacket on some old barbed wire poured cold rusty
water on a miserable fire I pulled on trouble's braids the creek was
swollen by daybreak and I could just barely see and I floated
downstream on an old dead tree and I pulled on trouble's braids I
pulled on trouble's braids I pulled on trouble's braids I pulled on
trouble's braids
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[Instrumental]
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