On the first floor
On the first floor
On the first floor there's a young girl reeling
Her body's numb and without feeling
As illusions dance on the midnight ceiling
Now she's falling, now she's kneeling
It's almost like she's bowed in prayer
A savior she's about to bear
She calls for help, but no one's there
guitar solo
On the first floor
guitar solo
On the first floor people walk the halls
But none can hear her desperate calls
There is no sound beyond the walls
So to the telephone she crawls
She telephones her only friend
The one on whom she calls
She can depend
But the phone rings on without an end
Then rings no more
guitar solo
On the first floor
guitar solo
guitar solo
guitar solo
, piano solo
guitar solo
guitar solo
guitar solo
guitar solo
guitar solo
guitar solo

There's a party on the second floor
And through the picture window
You can see them all
guitar solo
guitar solo
They're laughing and they're dancing
Admiring the Renoir that's hanging on the wall
guitar solo
But in the master bedroom
Where the coats are piled high
guitar solo
A silent satin lady thinks of what it's like to die
guitar solo
guitar solo
And as she dwells on all the years
She still has left to face
guitar solo
guitar solo






she wonders how she'll ever find someone to take his place
suddenly she's jarred by the ringing of the phone oh why do you ring now just when i want to be alone
so she walks to the faucet takes some water from a cup
but the telephone stops ringing just before she picks it up
my family was very poor so i worked hard to be secure
and i married one i had to wed not the one i loved instead
for when i was young my blood ran water on my face
but we stayed married for the child now three flights up i'm all alone
my wife is gone my child is grown
my daughter needs a wayward life i guess she's been a failure as a wife
though she lives just one floor down she never calls her comes around
Step off the platform and onto the train
Look out your window and into the rain
And watch all the buildings that pass as you ride
And count all the stories that go on inside
And then ask yourself if it must be this way
Should walls and doors and plaster ceilings
Separate us from each other's feelings
Before you can do a gig like this,
you have to sign a paper that swears you won't curse.
You know what the fine is for cursing on the air?
Ten grand or two years.
Take your pick, which is under the box.
It's like, let's make a deal.
It'll be ten grand or two years.
I think I'll take the two years.
I'll take six months and five grand.
Whatever you can do.
Snapping away, everything is weird.
Come on!
They have echo on everything?
It's fantastic.
There they are in the booth looking out.
This is what the fish must feel like
down at Silver Lake in Florida.
Look at that one.
It's a banjo fish.
Applause
Applause
Applause
Applause
Applause
Applause



This whole thing can make you very paranoid.
As Ed Sanders says, though, just because you're paranoid
doesn't mean they're not trying to get you.
People, Americans especially, are incensed over the fact
that we're a violent nation, specifically more violent than most.
This is fantastic water, by the way.
I think they got it out of a bottle or something.
It's an interesting thing that Alan Lomax,
in putting his book together, decided that about 60% of the songs
that made it over from Europe and landed in our American repertoire
contained the theme of a man murdering his lover
and shoveling her into her grave
and then riding home under the cover of darkness,
not to be found out.
Songs like Frankie and Johnny,
were the great American staples.
They reflect what it is that we are.
But I think we're more than that, too.
We can, I guess, be a country of
velvet and steel.
Great contrast.
I play the banjo every so often when I get onto my American jag.
It's the only American instrument there is, I guess,
besides the ukulele.
It's only a recent addition.
It has its origins in Africa.
It always freaks me out every time I see a George Wallace campaign
with some cat playing bluegrass.
The only new.
Get that racist instrument off the stage.
.