Joni Mitchell - Mingus (1987) by Joni Mitchell (보컬) on maniadb.com

He is three
One's in the middle unmoved
Waiting
To show what he sees
To the other two
To the one attacking--so afraid
And the one that keeps trying to love and trust
And getting himself betrayed
In the plan--oh
The divine plan
God must be a boogie man!

One's so sweet
So overly loving and gentle
He lets people in
To his innermost sacred temple
Blind faith to care
Blind rage to kill
Why'd he let them talk him down
To cheap work and cheap thrills
In the plan--oh
The insulting plan
God must be a boogie man!

Which would it be
Mingus one or two or three
Which one do you think he'd want the world to see
Well, world opinion's not a lot of help
When a man's only trying to find out
How to feel about himself!
In the plan-oh
The cock-eyed plan
God must be a boogie man!

The rain slammed hard as bars
It caught me--by surprise
Mutts of the planet
And shook me down for alibis
I'm waiting
For the keeper to release me
Debating this sentence
Biding my time
In memories
Of old friends of mine ...
In daydreams of Birdland
I see my soul on fire
Burning up the bandstand
Next time
I'll be bigger!
I'll be better than ever!
I'll be happily attached
To my cold hard cash!
But now Manhattan holds me
To a chair in the sky
With the bird in my ears
And boats in my eyes
Going by

There are things I wish I'd done
Some friends I'm gonna miss
Beautiful lovers
I never got the chance to kiss...
Daydreamin' drugs the pain of living
Processions of missing
Lovers and friends
Fade in and they fade out again
In these daydreams of rebirth
I see myself in style
Raking in what I'm worth
Next time
I'll be bigger!
I'll be better than ever!
I'll be resurrected royal!
I'll be rich as Standard Oil!
But now--Manhattan holds me
To a chair in the sky
With the bird in my ears
And boats in my eyes
Going by

Of the darkness in men's minds
What can you say
That wasn't marked by history
Or the T.V. news today
He gets away with murder
The blizzards come and go
The stab and glare and buckshot
Of the heavy heavy snow
It comes and goes
It comes and goes

His grandpa loved an empire
His sister loved a thief
And lindsey loved the ways of darkness
Beyond belief
Girls in chilly blouses
The blizzards come and go
The stab and glare and buckshot
Of the heavy heavy snow
It comes and goes
It comes and goes

The cops don't seem to care
For derelicts or ladies of the night
They're weeds for yanking out of sight
If you're smart or rich or lucky
Maybe you'll beat the laws of man
But the inner laws of spirit
And the outer laws of nature
No man can
No--no man can

There lives a wolf in Lindsey
That raids and runs
Through the hills of Hollywood
And the downtown slums
He gets away with murder
The blizzards come and go
The stab and glare and buckshot
Of the heavy heavy snow
It comes and goes
It comes and goes

I'm down to a roll of dimes
I'm stalking the slot that's hot
I keep hearing bells all around me
Jingling in the lucky jackpot
They keep you tantalized
They keep you reaching for your wallet
Here in fool's paradise

I talked to a cat from Des Moines
He said he ran a cleaning plant
That cat was clanking with coin
Well, he must have had a genie in a lamp
Cause every time
I dropped a dime I blew it
He kept ringing bells nothing to it..

He got three oranges, three lemons
Three cherries, three plums
I'm losing my taste for fruit
Watching the dry cleaner do it
Like Midas in a polyester suit
It's all luck, it's just luck
You get a little lucky and you make a little money

I followed him down the strip
He picked out a booth at Circus Circus
Where the cowgirls fill the room with their big balloons
The Cleaner was pitching with purpose.
He had Dinos and Pooh Bears
And lions, pink and blue there
He couldn't lose there

Des Moines was stacking the chips
Raking off the tables
Ringing the bandit's bells
This is a story that's a drag to tell
(In some ways)
Since I lost every dime
I laid on the line
But the cleaner from Des Moines
Could put a coin
In the door of a John
And get twenty for one
It's just luck

When Charlie speaks of Lester
You know someone great has gone
The sweetest swinging music man
Had a Porkie Pig hat on
A bright star
In a dark age
When the bandstands had a thousand ways
Of refusing a black man admission
Black musician
In those days they put him in an
Underdog position
Cellars and chittlins'

When Lester took him a wife
Arm and arm went black and white
And some saw red
And drove them from their hotel bed
Love is never easy
It's short of the hope we have for happiness
Bright and sweet
Love is never easy street!
Now we are black and white
Embracing out in the lunatic New York night
It's very unlikely we'll be driven out of town
Or be hung in a tree
That's unlikely!

Tonight these crowds
Are happy and loud
Children are up dancing in the streets
In the sticky middle of the night
Summer serenade
Of taxi horns and fun arcades
Where right or wrong
Under neon
Every feeling goes on!
For you and me
The sidewalk is a history book
And a circus
Dangerous clowns
Balancing dreadful and wonderful perceptions
They have been handed
Day by day
Generations on down

We came up from the subway
On the music midnight makes
To Charlie's bass and Lester's saxophone
In taxi horns and brakes
Now Charlie's down in Mexico
With the healers
So the sidewalk leads us with music
To two little dancers
Dancing outside a black bar
There's a sign up on the awning
It says "Pork Pie Hat Bar"
And there's black babies dancing...
Tonight!