Down Across The Delaware - James McMurtry

Bills are paid but it makes no difference

To the gods that seem to rule our home

Heat shut off for no known reason

This old building’s got a mind of its own

I can tell your footsteps on the stairs from three flights up

I know the jingling of your keys

You won’t hear no and you don’t look back and you can’t slow down

These days you don’t have much to say to me

In another town what would fetch a good living

Here is barely hand to mouth

So I’m going out and get a U-Haul trailer

Drag it down the turnpike south

Where the Garden State gives way to the real world

Falls away in the rearview mirror

We’ll mend our wounds and wait out the winter

Down across the Delaware

We get along in a manner of speaking

We barely have to speak at all

Small talk over take-out pizza

Silently passing in the hall

Post-It notes… and opposite shifts

Once in a blue moon we’ll wake up in the same room

Thankful for these thy many gifts

We run by night, we live it and breathe it

We’re the best of the best and I just don’t care

I’ll mend my wounds and wait out the winter

Down across the Delaware

And I’ll see you in the spring

When the chill don’t cut so deep

I’ll be back around to give this town another crack at me

I heard a voice today I swore I knew

From somewhere down in the southern sticks

I turned around to see some ragged stranger

Bummin change on the uptown six

And I froze like a stone

Could I ever get that low?

Turned my face to the window

There by the grace of God I go

Where the Garden State gives way to the real world

Falls away in the rearview mirror

I’ll mend my wounds and wait out the winter

Down across the Delaware