Forty Eight Twenty Three Twenty Second Street Lyrics - The Fiery Furnaces

Forty Eight Twenty Three Twenty Second Street 

Now, as for my aunt 

Who told on me 

She was always wearing her turbans 

Sailing back to Greece on the Normandy 

Having dinner at the captain's table 

Sitting on the deck with 5 men surrounding her 

With uncle Sam in the back row 

Back at home, riding up the Taygetus on a donkey named David 

With her soft leather boots dangling off to the side 

So full of pride 

So full of pride. 

Profitis Elias, so high you can see us 

4823 22nd St., standing there with cashmere overcoats 

And those turbans with their Arabian silver 

And ostrich and papagou feather hats 

And not far down from our koumbaros Betinis 

We've got a secret between us Betinis 

In the back of the Hawthorne smoke shop 

In the basement of the hat factory 

The fedoras got glued together 

But in that back basement... 

In that back basement, a lot of things got sewn up! 

A full compliment of grinchy Italians 

Counting up on their stubby fingers, and smoking, I'm told 

The least sophisticated cigars 

The local lottery and so forth 

Like anybody was going to get a nit out of that nut 

Though what a lucky loser is our five thousand dollars a day friend and koumbaros Betinis 

We've got a secret between us, Betinis 

In the back of the Hawthorne smoke shop, 

Haberdashery was the least of it 

In the basement of the hat factory 

The fedoras got glued together 

But in that back basement... 

In that back basement, a lot of things got sewn up 

We've got a secret between us, Betinis. 

Five thousand dollars a day 

Five thousand dollars a day 

Five thousand dollars a day 

Five thousand dollars a day 

In the basement of the hat factory 

The fedoras got glued together 

But in that back basement 

In that back basement, a lot of things got sewn up! 

We've got a secret between us, Betinis 

Not that nobody knows, like nobody knows about the white doves that flew out the cake at the brother's wedding 

In your hat factory, Betinis, they count up all the buffalo nickels 

And silver certificates wrung from Lake Superior spirits 

And prize fight foolery, and sluts speaking easy in the closets on 12th St. 

And in exchange you put in your pants $5,000 a day to stick under your bed for starters 

But later in the laundry, so you can feel free to chase your wife around the table 

When you feel she looked at the apricot and boysenberry boy twice