Jerry was a racecar driver
He drove so goddamned fast.
Never did win no checkered flags, but he never did come in last.
Jerry was a racecar driver
Twenty-two years old
Had one too many cold *bars *one night, wrapped himself around a telephone pole.
Go, go, go
Go, go Speed Racer!
Got out really early from the factory
Driving like a nut in the rain
Don’t think I was acting so hysterically
But I didn’t see a thing until it came
Man, the drunks were verbal in the takeaway
Beating up the Chinee at the counter
I put a few inside me at the end of the day
I took out my revenge on the revolution counter
My foot’s on the throttle and it’s made of lead
But I’m a fast ridding daddy with a real cool head
I’ma gonna pass a truck on the hill ahead-
[Scrreeech-BANG, tinkle]
Transfusion, transfusion
My red corpsucles are in mass confusion
Never, never, never gonna speed again
Pass the crimson to me, Jimson
Wound it up to a-hundred-and-ten
My speedometer said that I hit top end
My foot was glued like lead to the floor
That’s all there is and there ain’t no more
Now the boys all thought that I’d lost my sense
And telephone poles looked like a picket fence
They said “Slow down, I see spots!”
The lines on the road just looked like dots
Took a corner, side-swiped a truck
Crossed my fingers just for luck
My fenders was clickin’ the guard rail posts
The guy beside me was white as a ghost
I’ll show him that a Cadillac
Is not a car to scorn.
Beep, beep. Beep, beep.
His car went beep, beep, beep.
Baby, baby drove up in a Cadillac
I said, “Jesus Christ! Where did you get that Cadillac?”
She said, “Balls to you, Daddy.”
She ain’t never coming back!
Ridin’ down the thoroughfare
with a nose up in the air
a wreck may be ahead
but he don’t mind
trouble comin’
he don’t see
he just keeps his eye on me
and any other thing that lies behind
with my plastic Jesus
goodbye and i’ll go far
i said with my plastic Jesus
sitting on the dashboard of my car
I was driving home early Sunday morning through Bakersfield,
Listening to gospel music on the colored radio station.
And the preacher said: “You know, you always have the Lord by your side.”
And I was so pleased to be informed of this
That I ran 20 red lights in his honor.
Thank you Jesus! Thank you Lord
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
So Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?
You can’t always get what you want.
I look up to the little bird
That glides across the sky
He sings the clearest melody
It makes me want to cry
It makes me want to sit right down
And cry cry cry
Crying to the sky
Searching for a silver lining
Hoping that the clouds I’m climbing aren’t hiding rain
The sky is cryin…
Can’t you see the tears roll down the street
I’ve been looking for my baby
And I wonder where can she be
Sometimes
I feel like I want to live
Far from the metropolis
Just walk through that door
Sometimes
I feel like I want to fly
Reach out to the painted sky
A prisoner to the wind
A bird on the wing
Sometimes
I feel the ocean in my blood
See rain from the sky above
Her salt brined tears
And now
Those tears leave taste on my tongue
Like the warm rush you get from
Black opium
Black opium
The game of love I played with arrogance and pride
And every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died.
The friends I made all seemed, somehow, to drift away
And only I am left on stage to end the play.
There are so many songs in me that won’t be sung.
I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue.
The time has come for me to pay
For yesterday
When I was young.
You know in the old days,
When a young man was a strong man.
All the people they stepped back,
When a young man walked by.
My young man wears a coat,
Once, long ago, a bonnie coat
Which my young man wore with pride.
Now I dress the coat all on his back,
For love for him I will not lack,
But to see it now, that collier’s coat, I can’t abide.
Singing bell-bottomed trousers
Coats of navy blue
Let him climb the rigging
Like his daddy used to do
Night falls on the city, baby feels the beat
Slick and sexy angel of the street
The queen of all the night birds watch her when she walks
She don’t say nothing but, baby makes her blue jeans talk