We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Recluses Unite!

by Al Duvall

/
1.
She plays a game where love means nothing, I do believe they call it tennis She serves in court and has a racket not unlike a public menace But this song's about her sister I met her at the greyhound track She's fetching but she won't roll over and I'm not sure I want her back I get such a tender feeling she's a thorny little rosebud Down before her I am kneeling and I'm mopping up my nose blood I know there must be some honey in that hive of angry bees She's an emerald I'd love to swallow and smuggle overseas It's like she's dancing on air sir when she dances with her fan sir But while you wait for her to care sir you should smoke 'em if you can sir I've got to visit the organ grinder and get some monkey glands I've got a bare knuckle ballerina on my hands I'd loiter 'round the old gymnasium glimpsing my Olympic nymph You came down off your pedestal and cracked my head against the plinth In the clinch I took advantage my swollen lip said "You are swell" You held me tight inside a bandage and told the cops I tripped and fell When you kiss me with your knuckle it's a custom I am new to When you belt me and I buckle a one-two punch in your tutu Oh I still cherish that night in Paris when you were in St. Paul And when the barkeep says "Name your poison" it's your name I call Oh you give my heart a beating you take the tree out of the country And I wonder why I'm greeting the grunting brunt of your effrontery But then it hits me- I can't be happy without the misery My little bare knuckle ballerina golly gee!
2.
O Anomia 03:13
Oh once I was reclusive once I was a shut-in I'd sit in total darkness so my shadow wouldn't butt in Oh misery loves company yes I could sure see why But lately I'm so sociable I hang my head and cry Oh once I was a flogger I made those prisoners scream I wound up in a bakery beating eggs and whipping cream I worked as a contortionist just trying to make ends meet I'm the white sheep of the family I failed them as a cheat O! Anomia why don't you care for me? I've come home from Antietam with a stump below my knee My gal's wrapped round my finger 'cause my hand is in her purse Her folks say when I bring her home at least she can't do worse She bought a fancy frock and met some menfolk from Manhattan The top half of the frock was felt the bottom half was satin A lawyer came a' courting, and thirteen kids he give her But thirteen is unlucky so she drowned one in the river She goes into the grove and at the little grave she grieves And seeing how it's Arbor Day she packs her trunk and leaves The granger grins and grinds his grains as he's done all his life But stranger sins his mind restrains until he's found a wife Then one day through his stockyards there ripped a big tornado The next day it rained rounds of beef away down in Laredo I'm rolling down the road now with my neck upon the track I sold my soul and now the devil wants his money back Two wrongs don't make a right sir it might take eight or nine At least that's what they tell the doughboys falling by the Rhine
3.
4.
Boys I made the circuit as a pest from the Yukon down to Key West 'Til I faced the guns of the Pinkertons and to them my capers I confessed They pinned some jobs on me I didn't do but a hobo's alibis are few I was held by Sarge on a groundless charge in the 'lectric chair at San Berdoo He said Handsome Pete come and cool your feet hop up on the barbecue stool When they strapped me down to it I cried I can hold down any bumpy ride But when the switch was thrown I felt every bone get all dislocated up inside I hadn't held a job since '89 now I'm the main conductor on the line She's a cannonball but I made her stall when I blew the fuse with my spine They said Don't you fret we'll just get reset and you'll soon be gettin' where you're gwine So they let this prisoner re-volt and that rattler took off with a jolt Thought I beat the odds but when I rode those rods 'twas like I hopped a lightning bolt They doubled up the juice but the straps burned loose and I ran round like a branded colt Well by this time I was plenty sore and I started crawling for the door They said Ease your head you'll be back on schedule just sit tight a little more Well the third time always is a charm smoke was puffing out my head and arm Boys that train was fast my whole life flew past on that third-rail express away from harm Time to hop that one-man boxcar down a hole out by the prison farm
5.
Dark Inside 02:49
Some men drink to their sweethearts some men drink to your health Me I drink to excess and I often toast myself I came home drunk this morning the wife began to shout We fought beside the window and we had a falling out 'Twas April Forty-Second a day I still forget The storms were on the ocean and the fish were getting wet I pulled them up to safety and strung them on a line I dried them in a skillet now those fish are doing fine I gambled my last dollar got thrown out in the street Took off my Eton collar- there was nothing left to eat I broke out of the poorhouse and through the woods I went The bloodhounds never found me for I did not have a cent My baby has no manners my baby has no charm And God was pouring in her brains when someone knocked his arm She's pretty as a picture that wasn't painted good I gaze at her for hours when she's outside chopping wood Into a vat of chili there fell a factory man His partner said Well so long pal I'll see you when I can The preacher loved a schoolgirl harassed her on the phone And followed her while whistling "You'll Never Walk Alone" That funeral director that guy's an awful flirt His comfort and consoling's just to grab a piece of skirt He's felt a lot of widows' bosoms heaving as they grieved And all his pretty orphans must be seen to be bereaved My school was the burlesque my teacher had no clothes I climbed up to her rescue and her fescue struck my nose Sometimes I find a nickel sometimes I find a dime And once I found a quarter boy! we had a swell old time "Oh doctor save my buddy" the wounded soldier said "His arms and legs and body's gone and I can't find his head" The world is cold and evil there's no place left to hide Their skins are many colors but all men are dark inside
6.
Oh, some say that vanity is a man-eating manatee in the pond just below one's reflection A murmuring mermaid a siren whose serenade avenges such selfish affection Tell Narcissus who drowned in his pool That's what mirrors were made for you fool Oh my self-centered love has been healthy and true Now I feel that I'm losing myself to you Oh you make me jealous so when you and I go out When I come home late there isn't any doubt That I've been out with you- I reek of your perfume I don't talk to myself I just go up to my room My heart once beat as two what happened to that spark when I went out together and petted in the park? I was my whole world and now there's someone new now it's me myself and you I love you my dear to leave you I am loath But could there be room in my heart for us both? I know you must see me in the window in the night Watching while you and I hold each other tight I miss my touch I miss my little laugh Since you came between me to tempt my better half And now I'm caught up in this strange menage a two with me myself and you
7.
Manhattan's made me madder than a hatter The clang and clatter's caused my mind to shatter But I've heard about a paradise where everything is free Where I can chase my dreams and they won't be chasing me I'll sail away to live on Welfare Island 'Neath palms held out for alms at the asylum Our ship will skip the ripples like a ferry To rest across the eastern estuary The natives will insist I stay a while and I'll emulate Napoleon's exile and In my little granite shack I'll smile and I'll never bid farewell to Welfare Island Where maidens in their uniforms beguile and Where time is only arrows on a dial and I'm free from all the cares upon the dry land I'll never bid farewell to Welfare Island
8.
Pray remember the General Slocum That death trap of lead paint and oakum As she burned to a cinder the fraulein and kinder Leapt into the lifeboats and broke 'em In those days New York City was thriving And industrious folk kept arriving It was beer halls and Germans and Lutheran sermons that prevented the market from diving An excursion was held every summer For the kin of the cobbler and plumber Everybody was dressed in their picnicking best But the glamour was soon to be glummer For in 1904 in those dark days of yore on the throne sat the big corporation From greedy directors to corrupted inspectors an octopus strangled the nation And the cost- cutting plan of the sweatshopper man was the model for business and profit Thus our ill- fated ship was unfit for the trip and nobody could even get off it So a flame set by someone unthinking As the cowardly crew set to drinking Went to spread without check from the hold to the deck And the choice came to burning or sinking For true connoisseurs of disaster No ferryboat ever surpassed her Though consumed by the fire And though land beckoned by her The captain kept pushing her faster One thousand did die in the wink of an eye at the hands of a corporate miser Grieving fathers returned for their families had burned and they plotted revenge with the Kaiser All those barons of humbug and hokum I hope that the anarchists choke 'em When they're lost in the slum that Kleindeutschland's become Since the wreck of the General Slocum
9.
Though many adore me I married a milliner She's breezy she's stormy I cherish the chill in her For although I'm forty she breathes and I feel eighteen She stands in her stall she's a poor kid with tortured feet She smiles through it all she's the orchid of Orchard Street I spotted her plumage through the window of my limousine On top of the world the air's rather thin alone I sat gasping and pale But the tenement basement apartment she's in is warm as a Mexican jail But business got tougher for my little milliner The work made her suffer the mercury was killin' her She'd faint on the sofa and arouse my chivalry So I reached in my pocket and pulled out a dime and ring I put back the dime and I gave her the other thing And laid down a hanky and fell upon my knee I heard from an old society flame the milliner weighed on her head A millionaire ought to be smart said the dame and she coaxed me to wed her instead But I didn't carry a torch like an arsonist I went to McSorley's 'cause that's where the parson is To ask him to marry the milliner and me
10.
Bee's knees, jeepers creepers, bread lines and Wall Street leapers We're the marathon dance band Palookas drag their slappers, chained onto fainting flappers We're the marathon dance band For twenty days now we've been going steady playing the Charleston Lindy baby and the Sacco-Vanzetti Longer faster louder keep up or take a powder We're the marathon dance band Exhausted underfed it's nice work if you can get it We're the marathon dance band We take a crippled nation and stir up a big sensation We're the marathon dance band Don't stand in line for handouts out in the snowstorm Stay a while and fake a smile and dance dance your toes warm You've got to try by golly or foxtrot beneath a trolley We're the marathon dance band Nowadays gold diggers have to use sifters Shake and wiggle those busted gigolos four-flushers and grifters Good times or great depression your fun is our profession We're the marathon dance band
11.
The Busker 02:33
I'm only the busker of the town my calling's inconsequential I'm just a buffoon a fool a clown the opposite of essential I fill the square with glee and mirth to cheer your day a little And then to show me what I'm worth you spatter my hat with spittle Spittle you spatter my hat with spittle The policeman earns his daily crust from evidence he's collected The sculptor likewise makes a bust and likewise he is respected The athlete bravely kicks a ball the vicar waxes holy Compared to them I don't work at all no wonder my station's lowly Lowly no wonder my station's lowly I'm only the busker of the town a prostitute once I fancied She eyed me up on the eiderdown and kicked me upon my pants seat She said Get up and quit my door it hurts my reputation To take your business what with your disreputable vocation Your disreputable vocation So spare some change as you pass by oh you can come up with tuppence Don't take my songs for free or I will orchestrate your comeuppance My tunes will keep you up all night I'll mock you in my verses And next time you pass by I might just serenade you with curses Curses I'll serenade you with curses

credits

released August 1, 2008

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Al Duvall Brooklyn, New York

contact / help

Contact Al Duvall

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account