Lonely Street

Sometimes when I'm walking down this lonely street
Well, it sure don't seem like it's been twenty years
Since I went walking down this lonely street
And the smell of perfumed ladies filled the air

This street ain't got no name, dead end is in the river
And I lived where I hated life day by day
There wasn't nothing that I could do to shake a cold night shiver
'Cause to move up Lonely Street you had to have some say

Gambling is bad luck down on Lonely Street
And it sure ain't no place to be when a man gets sore
You know I killed a man and I paid all I can
With twenty years on a chain gang
For the flesh and the blood on that jail house floor

Sometimes when I'm walking down this lonely street
I get caught up in a dream that won't let me go
And as the bright lights flash up and down this lonely street
My mind rolls back the years a long time ago

I see my baby stumblin' 'round with tears in her eyes
And as I reach out for her, she falls on the floor
She mumbles through bloody lips about a black man, robber, raper
And in my gut I know I got one to score

I need somebody, oh oh yea
I need somebody, yea
And I need a, and I need a, eh ha
And I need a, yea ah

The word was comin' down, down on Lonely Street
That the black man was a dead man if he crossed my trail
Every night I'd walk up and down this Lonely Street
I get stinkin' drunk always in jail

One night they threw me in with a man they called, 'The Mangler'
He was caught on the street makin' some old whore
I remember he was quite proud of that
So half crazed I shot him
And I cried in the blood on that jail house floor

Oh I don't want no more
Oh yea, yea