I will be born in the Horse Latitudes
Where the winds are too damn quiet
And in way too good a mood
The Roaring Forties bruise my feet
The trade winds muss my hair like wheat
Into art school attitudes

I'll dot my "i"s a little queer
With stars and hearts and lightning strikes
Till my local gods appear
If they're not here by seventeen
I'll blow my chance of ever being
Teenager of the year

When I crash into the scene
I am unrescued: no one notices a thing
I try to slip in through the back
Another bust up dressed in eighteen shades of black

I'll be their dumb suburban boy
Fucked up, farting, friendless
With my charms left unenjoyed
The thin faced man will glide right in
With stars and hearts and lightning strikes
Inside his pale blue eyes

We'll be tappin' on a vein
Trying to mix the blood up
With those little bits of rain
But I'll find there's no reward
The stone clings tighter to the sword
Than before I ever came

I'll be almost destroyed
Sending my bags on ahead into the void
When I gets a bright idea
I'll make a pretty noise until those wretched gods appear

When I pick up my machine
I won't kill fascists
That's a whole other scene
Mash notes in my tambourine
From the local chapter
Of the Mattachines

I'll strum like I could make a bunch of fives
To smash the Buddha
Into his next hundred lives
Before my daemons get ya
You're just dancing about architecture
Till my time arrives

I will never be a star
I'll realize the nineteenth time I pawn my guitar
Folks may piss on my parade
But I am only the next gig away from the light

John Hammond will not walk into my show
His pockets stuffed with contracts
And a half a key of blow
A world tour, crash and coma
And a graduate diploma
From the Betty Ford, you know

I'll never make it to the crossroads for to deal
'Coz that assumes I got
A soul in here to steal
I'll be cutting corners
Hanging round in saunas
Trying to catch the devil's heel

I'll get close before I fail
My hands will slip upon the tiger's tail
And as I watch the gold and black recede
I lift my shooter but I cannot get a bead

Maybe I'll take liberties with love
Using Andrew Marvell
And that His Coy Mistress stuff
And if you should thus refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews
Well, it don't seem long enough

I'll be catching zeds until
I will awake to find
Your hand inside my till
Hey man, I say, that's okay
If you want me now to pay
Well, I'll put you in my will

I'll sell the rights to my last breath
The cards predict I'll be star-spangled to death
With a bomber up my arse, I'm ripping off Karl Marx
Once is tragedy, this time it's just farce

I'll have nothing left to do
To close the heavens down
And wipe them from my view
'Coz when the blanket's pulled up tight
The spirits keep me up all night
Too bad they missed their fucking cue

I'll be too tired to get it down
All those grand gestures
And those mock heroic sounds
Hepped up like Norman Mailer
On a Benzedrine inhaler
Can't you slow the whole thing down?

I'll be strung out and annoyed
Throwing my prayer wheels on ahead into the void
When I get's a bright idea
I'll make a racket till those wretched gods disappear

When you bury my guitar
There won't be strings enough
To play another bar
Some other trumped up troubadour
Can lead you through some other door
But nobody makes it far


Next time I think I'll come out somewhere new
Bein' born is easy
It's just hard to choose who to
Perhaps I'll be a player
In a temple in the Himalayas
Chasing down the truth

I'll be almost alive
When I hear that the master has died
Leaves me pissing on his grave
I was only a candle away from the light

The wind undresses the rose
Until the bud
Is all that shows
The dharma's in disgrace
It hides its pretty face
Until the last veil goes

And me, I think I'm through with bein' born
Just leave my stupid body
In the wastes of Forest Lawn
And if you have to wake me
Make it sunset and let me make my own way
Back into the dawn

When I slip out of the scene
I will be chuffed if no one notices a thing
Every sunrise has its back
I will be drifting into those eighteen shades of black

When will this cycle ever end
Why am I stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again?
Those stars and hearts and lightning strikes
Can just get up and on their bikes
'Coz I won't do this again

I'm through
Bein' born