Once met a girl from Roanoke, Virginia
Her eyes were green, her hair was red, she was 24 and I was 19 and we'd f** like bunnies all day on her
waterbed
We listened to Hüsker Dü's 'Candy Apple Grey' and 'Warehouse Songs & Stories' so many times that my
ears bled
We listened to Lou Reed's 'Berlin', I loved the sadness and the starkness of Caroline Says
And especially 'The Kids'
Sometimes her and I we'd have a lot of fun and sometimes we'd fight
She had a son, he was 4, one time they dropped me off at a Greyhound bus station in the middle of the night
And I sat there all night waiting for the bus
Knowing it was finally the end of us
It took me years to see where I was wrong
I didn't have any money back then and she got tired of carrying me along
But we kept in touch and one day in Philadelphia
She came to a show of mine and we went back to her apartment together
Her son was taller than me and he was sitting there at his computer
And the next morning we met up at a Jewish deli with some friends of hers
And I don't believe that I've ever seen her since then
But up in Vancouver I did meet Lou Reed I told him how much that I loved 'Berlin'
And he said “And who are you?”
And I also met Bob Mould from Hüsker Dü at an Austin airport on my way home
And he said my version of 'Celebrated Summer' was on this phone
It's funny where life takes you
And all the adventures that we go through
And who we meet along the way
The things that catch our eyes that make us think of yesterday
It's crazy where life takes you
And all the music that we hear that reminds us of the friends and lovers we knew
And as we get older every corner we turn
There's still new things that open our eyes and things to learn
There's bittersweet and love and sadness
there's uplift in the air and there's insanity and madness
Gonna read some poems by some street kids in Argentina
Gonna walk through the Lower Ninth Ward and think of Hurricane Katrina
I remember walking around those streets before the houses got washed away
It's hard for me to walk around this world and not think about yesterday
When I walk through the Broadway Tunnel I think of a sh**ty fight
That I had with an ex-girlfriend before I jumped on a flight
And flew like a bat out of hell out to Tennessee
Where a girl in a house in the country took me in and rescued me
And we came back late from Donuts and a deer's head was laying in the driveway
An ex-boyfriend of hers was trying to send me a message like “stay the f** out of my way!”
But I have nice memories of that house listening to NPR and drinking tea
But her puppy Sally was shot and k**ed when she went onto to somebody else's property
Some memories are happy and some are sad
I take the bad with the good and am grateful for what I have
And walking from my place to my girlfriend's on Russian Hill
I get overwhelmed with memories of the Broadway Tunnel
This life of beautiful animals and people
This life of so much art and poetry
I walk down the street and I'm still inspired
By everything I see
This life of many rivers, seas and lakes and oceans
This life of many landscapes
This life of so much warm sunshine
This life of so many storms and so much pouring rain
I walk past the restaurant I used to go for Chinese
I knew the twin waitresses there, Mindy and Muriel, since they were both 15
I saw them both grow up and have children and I saw them turn 40
Now the place is all boarded up with plywood and I miss the wonton soup there like crazy
The grocery store where I used to go that played music from the 60's
Got taken over by the Google kids from Silicon Valley
But I won't let it run me out and I won't let it faze me
This city has always been and will always be an inspiration
Friends come and go, the world continues to spin
Don't know that I'll ever hear from that girl from Virginia
Or that I'll ever see Mindy and Muriel
But I hope someday that when I die it's near that Broadway Tunnel
Walking by your side around Russian or Telegraph Hill