Poundin' on the pay phone
Trying to shake loose another dime
Trying to scrape another meal together
He was a freight-yard bum
Who had mellowed some
Since the street fights of his prime

Now his fight was against
the night and the weather
And lookin' for the heat
on the bone-cold city streets
He tumbled through the soup lines
and the cowboy bars downtown
Until he found the Hotel St. James

Like a good ship giving passage
To the poor and disconnected
Make a new man resurrected
Where the old man used to be

Night light burned in the lobby
And the desk clerk winding down
Too tired to stand
The elevator man was left leanin'

Old man off the street
found the night rates cheap
While he talked
through the walls and the wine
And no one came by to ask him why
or when he's leavin'

And out in the dark dogs bark
at the streetlight-moon above them
While the wind drives in
the homeless on their way
And so they stay at the Hotel St. James

Down from the boarded-up ballroom
Through the shaky back stairs hall
Word came down
someone found the old man failin'

A buck and a half
An old photograph all yellowed
and cracked like a dream
of his young war bride
and him beside her smilin'

And out in the street
no one speaks about his passing
No mention made
of the ancient faceless men
That stagger into the Hotel St. James

---

Teksty umieszczone na naszej stronie są własnością wytwórni, wykonawców, osób mających do nich prawa.