Eric Andersen - Beat Avenue Lyrics

It was high noon in the neighborhood
City fell in shock
The moment when it heard the news
The president had been shot
Sun was shinin nothing shakin
Bay so big and blue
Me stuck in phone booth arm-full of wash
Trying to call my gal across the bay
Only to hear crackly metal voice say
Try again, sir, all circuits busy

What in the world was going on
I looked around with a feelin strange and lost
It was haunted in the neighborhood and gettin spooky fast
Startled words became a flood
Tongues gathered and soon began to flock
The moment when they heard the news
The president had been shot, shot, shot

Me walkin in space whistlin in the dark
I didn't have a clue
Thinkin about a new song
Ramblin down Beat Avenue
Shot, shot, shot, shot
Under mighty blue sky canopy
Who come runnin up the hill
But Billys cousin Joan
It was the wildest, goofiest thing
Yeah we had a thing or two
Now she was ziggin, zaggin
Middle of the street
Comin towards me
Arms flailin horns were honkin
Bigger an life
A crazy sight
Until she collapsed on parked car
Blond hair spillin over the hood
She was sobbin, out of breath
Lookin up to me as if to speak
But no sound came
Just tears
Green-eyed liquid pain
Runnin down her face
And low animal groan
Coming from somewhere deep inside her throat
They shot him, man, probably shot him dead
They shot him, man, probably shot him
Dead
Dead
She gasped for angry words
Pulled her off the car
Dropped the wash
We started down the hill
Talkin gray monotones
All the way to her place
Climbed the stairs
Switched on the TV
And there was Walter Cronkite
Puttin on and takin off his horned-rims
And wipin back his tears
While trying to utter the unspeakable
At 1 PM Dallas time
President Kennedy died
At Parkland Memorial Hospital
In a ghostly instant memory fused
Wonderin what would happen next
While silence blew up the room
Where to go, what to do?
Everybody glued to the breaking flames
Blowin cross the tube
As bad news spread
Mouth to mouth
Ear to ear
Blazin down Beat Avenue
Shot, shot, shot, shot

Where was Jack
Sweet (Where was Jack tonight?) slumber Jack
Sweet, crazy
Dumb-saint of the mind
Our alter boy in Northport darkened room
Alone, deep in armchair
In front of flickerin blue tube
Smellin indifference in every mantra breath
Mama's leftover casserole waits on kitchen counter
While fingers make white knuckles
And crush empty beer can
Tossin it into trash
Ti-Jean
You found the asphalt eye and Buddha's heart
On the road

You were born knowin
And blew as deep as you could blow
Born to see
And make it new
You loved and honored life
Until it
Killed you
Now as the day turns black and blue
Still it's me and still it's you
Movin to the dharma
Looking down Beat Avenue
Shot, shot, shot, shot

Where are you, precious Julie?
Part-time barmaid
Part-time artist model
Full-time kind
Where are you tonight?
Thinkin you were my first
When you closed the bar
Found me on the floor
Huggin the toilet bowl
We sailed those foggy drunken hills
Past tunnel lights and twirlin stars
Up Russian Hills and creaky stairs
To bungalow
Candle flame and jasmine
You pulled the dress high over your head
Threw the fishnet stockings
On the chair
Study of black on black
Then next
Me now sunk low in tub
Of warm fragrant waters
Scented fingers memorizin bones of my white body
Spells of deep opium kisses
Gleams from your olive eyes
From loins of gold I tasted the perfume
Of your morphine flesh
Ooooh, Your hair chestnut flames
Made a tent that tumbled down your breast
Modigliani fallin free from the frame
My every boyish wish came true
A living odalisque
You proved again what Georges Clemenceau once said
That the greatest sin there is
Is a soul that lacks warmth
That wasn't one of yours, my love
While we drifted on the drunken boat
Sheltered from the blues
You holdin me
Me holdin you
Floatin soft and true
Chasin my Van Gogh
Driftin down Beat Avenue
Shot, shot, shot, shot

Before the Coffee Gallery and Julie's foggy rides
I played in North Beach Streets and doorways
Playing for wine and coins
A skinny wide-eyed kid to JC's' lonesome blues
With Gregory beatin shoebox time
JC blew the harp
JC Burris was his name
Sonny Terry's Georgia nephew
With a big scar
Runnin cross his neck
Everyone saw that
He taught me how to kill a man
With just one hand around the throat
Whoa, JC Burris
You blew for all
Street was your stage
Where you taught me the hand jive
We played for cash and jugs of wine
One night across the Golden Gate
You sang and cried 500 miles, 500 miles
Lord I'm 500 miles from my home
When I finished my payin gig
You'd stand outside and wait
We'd sometimes, sometimes split the take
Then one night after closin time
The Big Chill
You disappeared
Maybe gone for good
Got up and split one day
To where
I never knew
You learn fast when things just come and go
Up and down Beat Avenue

So I headed for the Haight
For a poetry read that night
Went up with my singin poet friend
David Melzer and his wife, Tina
David was a moonlight City Light book clerk
And was heard to say
The mystery is the ordinary
And the ordinary is the mystery
And there ain't no such thing as coolsville
Climbed those creaky stairs, sat in blackened room
Dull light strung over a little stage
Allen Ginsberg just returned
From Buddha's jukebox
Calcutta and Saigon
He'd been diamond sutra'd
Banged and cocked
Now he was on Columbus Ave swathed in smilin white
But tonight the air was sick and bruised
He was dressed in black
After poets recited stuff Allen stood and read
All nerve and breath
Olive-wreathed
Paper in his hand
His words spit rage
He sang of Dharma boomerangs
And karmic kickback
Of open graves
And worms crawling out of assholes of dead presidents
In a haunted room of silhouettes
We were perched along the void
While McClure stood under naked landing bulb
Ferlinghetti
Deep in thought
Fingers strokin chin
And restless Neal
Stalkin his shadow
Along the wall
We watched from the abyss
As hope burned into ashes
Allens words gunned down
All sorrow in the room
The world caved in
The room breathed out
Every word rang
Hard and true
Howlin down Beat Avenue
Shot, shot, shot, shot, shot, shot

Now the image of pink
And a burned-out star
Pale in TV grays
A wave, a smile, open car
Camelot's skull got shattered into pieces
Then on a tarmac
On a field called Love
We saw her standin there
A woman in the noonday Dallas sun
In blood-splattered pink suit
Her face told it all
That a dream had died
And gone to ****
Rainin ashes on our hearts
Freezin winds just blew
Blew the flames apart
Shattered like the shotgun leaves
Blowin blood
Blowin down Beat Avenue

Shot, shot, shot, shot, shot

It was in the midnight hour
Drivin rag-tag through the hills
To Ferlinghetti's bastion
Up steep steps
I look behind and see the black bay below
Surrounded by gleaming jewels on black velvet
Connected by necklaces of sparkling bridges
Everythin looked the same
And now nothin was the same
We all stumbled down
Victorian corridor
To back kitchen

Allen near Formica counter
Stark naked by the sink
Wearin only beard and trademark horned-rims
Oak table groaning with cheap jug wine
Air is thick with weed
Allen sits next to me on neighbor woman's lap
We're talking quietly amongst ourselves in somber tones
Feel a little too good on a night like this
Neal Cassidy appears standin in front of fridge
Head bowed down
Clutchin a shoe box full of clean
Mexican weed
Not a seed or stem in sight
Standin taut-jawed
Talkin to no one
Not even himself
Raw-boned
Juarez jailbird
In redline fever night
All knitted brow
But smiling sweetly
Shy, like a girl

Tina rolls a massive joint
From tissue thin Chinese newspaper
Like a rocket travelin hand to mouth
Smoke drifts over cheap jug wine and cans
Of Green Death Rainier ale
Then I gotta pee
I go down to the hall to the toilet
And from behind the door

Comes soft, desperate knockin
I zip up quick
Standin in the doorway
I see a naked holy man holdin cereal bowl
Full of wine and puke
I step aside as he carefully pours
Gut-freed vomit alms in porcelain bowl
I see and smell wretch and blood
Soul-nausea and cheap red wine
Just the holy man and me
Standing in the loo
Waitin for the shoe to drop
As the ice just
Grew and grew
Shiverin down Beat Avenue

Oh, the days wore thin
White December days
Mist froze to my face
Like tears
Just walkin to keep warm and kill time
Wanderin Telegraph, San Pablo
Berkeley Avenues
Into Oakland wasteland
Past thrift shop desolation
Abandoned railroad tracks
Overgrown docks
Seein shaky hands warming over flames in oil drums
Oooooh, it's cold
Beneath long Cavalry
Strings of power lines
Above storefront churches
Salvation Army dreams
Walkin to the strains of Lightnin's blues
Ah, to go back far from the fog and misery
Yeah, I left my home
A diamond fire burnin in my head
Saddled on a hobo steed
To ride the blazin, blazin rainbow rails

To a paradise with a terrible urge and longin
To go back to someplace warm
A place like home, safe from jungle wars
A place like New York City
Fly down, like an angel
Over buildings and bones
And try n change the world
Before it started changin me
Changin me

So I turn to face the rails
Collar to the wind
See the lonesome road
Goodbye Julie
Goodbye fog
City Lights, Vesuvio's
Hot Dog Palace
Market Street
Gonna cross that bridge of sighs
So if ya hear me singin
Lightnin's Mountain Blues
If ya hear me singin
Lightnin's Rocky Mountain Blues
Know I'm back out on the road again
Farewell
Beat Avenue
Farewell Beat Avenue
Farewell Beat Avenue
Farewell Beat Avenue
Farewell

Shot, shot, shot, shot, shot, shot, shot, shot