Pink Slips

Three brides before breakfast These rails just wrecked us My right hand on my heart While my left hand snaps your necklace Each day gets a little more scary We're holding on, in a way, but just barely Moms and Dads are rationing their cash for the commissary But I can't stop without going all the way It's a habit someone gave me The nursemaid of the blank page A canary of the American eclipse A profiteer picking up pink slips This wish just to go back, hey When I know wasn't ever, ever happy Show me my best memory, it's probably super crappy Nine years down in Texas With sluts of both sexes Liars, lumps, and drug addicts, and drunks; I love my friends But I can't stop without going all the way And I've been that way since '83 The midwife of the jetlife Or a genie with a golden spliff A prostitute paid in pink slips I crashed my Cadillac in the valley of mirrors When the call came, there was nobody here When they came for the communists, I kissed them on the lips Then they came for the singers, in a haze of pink slips I guess I was just dreaming and drifting Or I was artificially lifted Only happy until the age of 10 is still a gift But we can't go back to those 227 days It's just a dream we all were having Hey, mariner in the dirt trade Oh, postman of the post-apocalypse - from Academy Awards to pink slips! And I showered my Corvette with Moët for years Now I'm standing in the rain drinking the champagne of beers They say, "Who's that shadow sneaking off behind the pier? He was rushed and then he was rattled, but now he's finally in the clear To be a refugee from the rat race In his white tuxedo and his sad-face A music group that your dad plays, singing songs about autumn days He's the laureate of the Granite State Now he doesn't even write, he just riffs And they'll cover up his coffin with pink slips."