I was a stumble bumming down
The neon music city sidewalks
With the junkie and the juicehead
Who had problems of their own
Stuck with luck it kept me standing
Just a step away from starving
And the talent that I swore I'd show
Before I'd go back home
Ninety days I looked the army
Making neither love nor money
And my only set of clothes
Was getting closer to the bone
And the junkie placed an order
With the prophet on the corner
And he told him of the soul
That he'd been selling for a song
He said, my future was my fortune
But I let it slip away
Slowly smoking myself broke on
Eighty cigarettes a day
Finding out that crime ain't all
There is that doesn't pay
And writing words that no one's gonna see
But did you said it who said it
I can read my fortune
In the bottom of a glass
And I can see it's time for me
To make my last request
Won't you fill my grave with whiskey
When I'm laid away to rest
So the boys can say
I drank myself to dead?
Well, I drank the whole thing over
Putting one and two together
And it added up to more of
What I didn't want to be
I ain't blaming music city
But it's only gonna see me
One more day and the wake up
And the time it takes to leave
Cause I got a dirty picture
Of what could have been my future
In a prophet pushing day dreams
On a corner for a fee
And the wino looking lonely
At a bottle getting empty
And a hungry looking junkie
Hunting tea in sympathy
And I bet that junkie's laughing
After the life he threw away
Slowly smoking himself broke on
Eighty cigarettes a day
Pleading down the prophet
To a price that he can pay
And writing words that no one's gonna see
But did you said it who said it
Every empty bottle
Is my private crystal ball
And staring into the future
Finding nothing there at all
Which is what I'll miss tomorrow
When the neon shadows fall
On the junkie and the juicehead minus me