Potter's Field Lyrics - Foreign Affairs - Tom Waits

Well you can buy me a drink and I'll tell you what I seen 

And I'll give you a bargain from the edge of a maniac's dream 

That buys a black widow spider with a riddle in his yarn 

That's clinging to the furrow of a blind man's brow 

I'll start talking from the brim of a thimble full of whiskey 

On a train through the Bronx that will take you just as far 

As the empty of a bottle to the highway of a scar 

That stretched across the blacktop of my cheek like that 

And then ducks beneath the brim of a fugitive's hat 

And you'll learn why liquor makes a stool pigeon rat on every face 

That ever left his shadow down on Saint Mark's place 

Hell, I'd double cross my mother if it was whiskey that they payed 

And so an early bird says nightsticks on the hit parade 

And he ain't got a prayer and his days are numbered 

And you'll track him down like a dog 

Well it's a tough customer you're getting in this trade 

'Cause the nightstick's heart pumps lemonade 

Well whiskey keeps a blind man talking alright 

And I'm the only one who knows just where he stayed last night 

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He was in a wrecking yard in a switchblade storm 

In a wheelbarrow with nothing but revenge to keep him warm 

And a half a million dollars in unmarked bills 

Was the nightstick's blanket in a febuary chill 

And as the buzzard drove a crooked sky 

He was dealin High Chicago in the mud 

And stackin' the deck against a dragnet's eye 

A shivering nightstick in a miserable heap 

With a siren for a lullaby singing him to sleep 

He was bleeding from a buttonhole 

Torn by a slug fired from the barrel of a two dollar gun 

That scorched a blister on the grip of a punk by now 

Is learning what you have to pay to be a hero anyhow 

He dressed the hole in his gut with a hundred dollar bandage 

A king's ransom for a bedspread that don't amount to nuthin' 

Just cobweb strings on a busted ukulele 

And the nightstick leaned on a black shillelagh 

With the poison of a junkie's broken promise on his lip 

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He staggered in the shadows screaming "I ain't never been afraid" 

And he shot out every street light on the promenade 

Past the frozen ham and eggers at the penny arcade 

Throwing out handfuls of a blood stained salary 

They were dead in their tracks at the shooting gallery 

And they fired off a twenty one gun salute 

And from the corner of his eye he caught the alabaster orbs 

Of a diamond dance hall girl and stuffed a thousand dollar bill 

In her blouse and caught the cruel and unusual punishment of her smile 

And the nightstick winked beneath a rainsoaked brim 

Ain't no one seen hide nor hair of him see 

No one 'cept a spade out on Riker's Island and me 

And so if you're mad enough to listen to a full of whiskey blind man 

Then you're mad enough to look beyond where bloodhounds dare to go 

So if you want to know just where the nightstick's hidin out 

You be down at the ferry landing, oh let's say bout half past a nightmare 

When it's twisted on a clock you tell 'em Nickels sentcha 

Whiskey always makes him talk 

And you ask for Captain Ccharon with the mud on his kicks 

He's the skipper of the deadline steamer 

And she sails from the Bronx across the river Styx 

And a riddle's just a ticket for a dreamer 

'Cause when the weathervane's sleepin and the moon turns his back 

You crawl on your belly long the railroad tracks 

And cross your heart and hope to die and stick a needle in your eye 

Cause he'd cut my bleedin heart out if he found out that I squealed 

Cause you see a scarecrow's just a hoodlum 

Who marked the cards that he dealed 

And pulled a gypsy switch 

Out on the edge of Potter's Field