Guitar Slinger

They kicked us out for playing too loud
I carried my amp out through the crowd
Some chick took a beer and threw it in my face
But I kept right on walking

Outside it was warm
There was a good crowd on the strip
We set our stuff down and had a smoke
Like we was waiting for a ride

And all the while I was thinking
You gotta keep moving in a mean, mean town
It's better going nowhere than just standing around
By tomorrow morning I'll be leaving town
I'll go any place but I ain't going down

Now I called Shorty and Lefty
There was a bassman called Beans
So we split to nail a rumor
About some work in New Orleans

A twenty fed the tank
Two bucks fed the band
Maybe we could make it
Down in jambalaya band

In a Meade Lux Lewis bar
That's where we found the job
Knocking tinpan out for tips
Mostly from the mob

Said okay we'll take it
When they're drunk, we'll play the blues
We'll get some shirts from the islands
And some Cuban rock 'n' roll shoes

And all the while I was thinking
You gotta keep moving in a mean, mean town
It's better going nowhere than just standing around
By tomorrow morning I'll be leaving town
I'll go anyplace but I ain't going down

But when we played the lost highway
A juice head said, we was hicks
And the whole bar began to beat us
With pool half sticks

They got the radio out of the car
They must have used a bomb
But when we piled in and gunned her
She still sang the sweetest sung

Lefty woke among the bottles
Said North he could not come
We left him on canal street
Trading in his drums

I saw Elvis hitchhiking
Out on the interstate
And Beans was getting paranoid
About our California plates

And all the while I was thinking
You gotta keep moving in a mean mean town
It's better going nowhere than just standing around
By tomorrow morning I'll be leaving town
I'll go anyplace but I ain't going down

A cruiser pulled us over
Right across the line
Booked us in as vagrants
In holding tank number nine

You learn how to flat pick
When you're looking at a forty four
You do the orange blossom special
Till the peel falls on the floor

The bassman had a bust
From back home in a raid
So it was just me and Shorty
Standing on main parade

We liquidized our assets
In a bar and did not talk
Then we hopped a non stop greyhound
To the big bad beauty of New York

I woke up on twenty third street
As he backed into the slot
I saw that me and Shorty
Had been robbed of what we got

Then a guy said through the window
This is the end of the line
I said, brother, I'm a guitar slinger
And this is just doing fine