I was crossing Kinzie street yesterday afternoon when the first lines of this song came to me. Now, this is a blues tune, that I've written comic or satiric words to on many an occasion. Either it's a really easy tune to write for, or it's so firmly grooved into my unconscious mind that it's just one of my songmaker's 'default' settings. Let's say this here one is in honor of NeoCon, since that's the crowd it refers to.
I sat down on a stoop a few blocks later after I got the third verse--they came in in a different order than I ended up putting them, and at that point I knew it had to be written down right then or I'd lose something of it. A bum (more well-off than a homeless guy, not as sharply calculating as the beggars who have regular street corners) came up and asked me for a cigarette. I gave him one, but without stopping my scribbles because I really wanted to get the song written down while it was fresh. He said something like "well, maybe we'll meet again one day" before wandering off. And I realized he'd wanted a longer conversation, which I had neatly avoided through song. Yay song!
"convention in town" 6-9-08
oh, if I were a pickpocket
I'd love to work this crowd
they're innocent and indolent
from out of town and loud
take cash and credit cards
and brown bag lunches - I'm not proud
oh, if I were a pickpocket
I'd love to work this crowd
oh, if I were a murderer
I couldn't stand the smell
cologne and sweat and confidence
that I'm bound straight to hell
with every pair of eyes I see
I'd wonder, can they tell
oh, if I were a murderer
I couldn't stand the smell
oh, if I were a rapist
then these dames would turn me on
their hair and clothes and faces
all just look spray-painted on
they take a half-step back
and look relieved when I am gone
oh, if I were a rapist
then these dames would turn me on
but I work right across the street
where all these people come to eat
it makes the business bittersweet
I punched out - I'm already beat
I've got to fight my way through them
to get back home again.
Homeschool Mom or Life in the Trenches
13 years ago
4 comments:
Awesome! That would be irony, or just plain "wry!" You know what I always tell my friends, kids, people I love about my job. "They make me go there and DO STUFF, or else they won't give me money. :( I think they should just send me money." Then Kris (the nursing supervisor in the family) says, "THAT would be work comp."
So you have varieties of street people there eh? I didn't know they could be sorted.
Hmmm, I miss you dear but there are things I don't miss about chicago. I used to enjoy the energy of all the shoppers when I worked on Michigan avenue..sometimes though you could feel lonely even surrounded by hundreds of people. I'm glad you are able to write poetry. Sounds like an exhausting day.
:D Oh, everything can be sorted, even people, if you end up close enough to them for a long enough time! Sometime I gotta make a post about the varieties of street people I'm aware of downtown. I could get positively McManusy about it if I weren't too careful.
Yeah, silly work, making me actually work. Now if only anybody here (including me) had a clear idea of what my job actually is, it'd be so much easier!
Aww Amber, sounds like the grittiness of the city does more to perturb than to energize you. I am glad Michigan Ave was nice for you sometimes at least! It's such a pretty area. Crowds of strangers rarely make me feel actually lonely. I vacillate between picturing what it would take to incite them to riot and imagining what it would be like to highjack small groups of them into conversations about stuff. XD Whereas the nice, safe, shoppingy neighborhoods tend to just make me annoyed that the only kind of shopping I can do is "window"...
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