Midnight Train

I went bust up in Dawson, Vancouver was worse
I got lost in the alley on the way to the church
The truth I used to see through the cracks in the sky
I left it in the ditch on a road full of lies
I burned down the house my grandfather built
Look back on my youth through a tunnel of guilt
Now it’s getting near midnight in this old hotel bar
I can stumble upstairs, my room ain’t too far

She said “Before I could sing, I had to learn to dance
You’ll never find your way out if you don’t take a chance”
The ghosts of my old world are calling me down
I’m still up here searching for the Rose I never found

I’m gonna take the road to nowhere, leave it all behind
Set fire to the ashes, won’t be nothing left to find
Break down in the mountains, ditch the truck and face the rain
I’m gonna ride the Midnight Train

At night I lay dreaming of the world where I was born
Barefoot by a streetlamp and a melancholy horn
Rexroth’s at the window, old Jacky’s at the bar
Corso’s at Vesuvio’s with another stolen car
The coffee shops are crumbling, the taxis are made of sand
There’s a girl by the bookstore with trainsmoke in her hand
Then I wake up in the moonlight with steel toes on my feet
Whispered memory fading like the shadows in the street

The night’s turning dark and the summer’s gone cold
When the first snow falls I’ll be out on the road
I’m too old to hitchhike but I still got my truck
I’ll be a lonely old rubbertramp with a worn-out clutch

-Chorus-

I seen the far side of Heaven and all the Hells in between
In the smoke from a cookfire and a rusty can of beans
Midnight on the water and a star above the ridge
I found my father’s ghost sleeping under a bridge
A man in the alley told me things would be okay
If I lined up all my problems and shot ‘em all away
Now the highway is a cold moon, rising in the East
On a Prince George hotel room and an old timber beast

I see a clearing in the path and a house up in the hills
You said you’d come and find me but I know you never will
Thunder in the trainyard and a clanging steamship bell
A secret on your red lips I know you’ll never tell

-Chorus-