Lyric by Woody Guthrie (1946), music by Billy Bragg (1997)
from the album Mermaid Avenue by Billy Bragg and Wilco, 1998
Last night or the night before that
(I won't say which night)
A
seaman friend of mine
(I'll not say which
seaman),
Walked up to
a big old building
(I won't say which building),
And would not have
walked up the stairs
(not so say which stairs),
If there had not have been
two girls
(leaving out
the names of those two girls).
I recall a door, a big long room
(
I'll not tell which room),
I remember
a deep blue rug
(but I can't say which rug),
A girl took down
a book of poems
(not to say which
book of poems),
And
as she read, I laid my head
(and I can't tell which head),
(!? -- ed.)
down in her
lap, and I can mention which
lap.
Spoken:
My seaman buddy and girl moved off
after a couple of pages and there I was,
All night long, laying and listening
and forgetting the poems.
And as well as I can recall,
or my seaman buddy could recollect,
My girl had told us that she was a niece
of Walt Whitman, but not which niece,
And it takes a night and a girl
and a book of this kind
A long long time to find its way back.