I was longing to be wooed
I was ready to be humbled
by the words that you had written
by the syllables you mumbled
yeah, I was ready in my heart
to have my heart invaded
by the fervour of your passion
yes, I came to be persuaded
But when I heard your ragged voice
something switched in my perception
and I knew I was the victim
of a beautiful deception
all my once exact beliefs
like tangled threads unravelled
I walked out, stunned and liberated
and so began my travels
Keep the river on your right
and the highway at your shoulder
and the front line in your sights, pioneer
Keep your eye on the road
remember what you told her
this is all in code, my dear
You better get yourself a coat
said the handsome taxi driver
and he sighed like seven bridges
like a natural-born survivor
as we drove into the night
I could feel the forest jangling
all the choices laid before me
and their consequences dangling
We came upon a stricken ship
that must have once been splendid
the captain as he died said "Boys,
our revels now are ended"
I heard a wild holy band
playing jazz that was outrageous,
that invoked the days of rapture
when our love was still young and contagious
Keep the river on your right
and the highway at your shoulder
and the front line in your sights, pioneer
Keep your eye on the road
remember what you told her
this is all in code, my dear
In a dim-lit motel room
two sad lovers were discoursing
on the dignity of exile
and the merits of divorcing
she said "all certainty is gone"
but he leapt up, still denying,
cried "I won't believe the flame I lit
is dead or even dying"
She left him drooling in the dust
and with rucksack packed begun her
bitter journey to the border
which is where I wooed and won her
she was Aphrodite, Helen, Thetis,
Eve among the satyrs
She was Venus in a v-neck sweater
she was all that ever mattered
Keep the river on your right
and the highway at your shoulder
and the front line in your sights, pioneer
Keep your eye on the road
remember what you told her
this is all in code, my dear
Like Dean Moriarty's ghost
I came in quest of secret knowledge
in the winter of my journey
to a crumbling Druid college
there I read the books of lore
and contemplated in seclusion
but I took my leave embittered,
still in love with my illusions
In the drizzling Irish rain
as a tender dawn was breaking
in a doorway I stood spellbound by
the ancient music they were making
I took my breakfast with the Gods
on a blushing summer morning
till a wind blew them all away
I had misread every warning
Keep the river on your right
and the highway at your shoulder
and the front line in your sights, pioneer
Keep your eye on the road
remember what you told her
this is all in code, my dear
Under cold electric light
I watch the scenes mutating
like an old time frontier ballad
or a carousel rotating
As if in a moment from a film
with astonishing precision
the camera zooms in close
and a figure comes into vision
I'm in Tokyo, it's dawn
and it's raining hallelujahs
down the bright-lit neon canyons
along the sidewalks of Shibuya
I'm trying to take a stance
and rise above my contradictions
but I'm just a bunch of words in pants
and most of those are fiction
Keep the river on your right
and the highway at your shoulder
and the front line in your sights, pioneer
Keep your eye on the road
remember what you told her
this is all in code, my dear
I was ready to be humbled
by the words that you had written
by the syllables you mumbled
yeah, I was ready in my heart
to have my heart invaded
by the fervour of your passion
yes, I came to be persuaded
But when I heard your ragged voice
something switched in my perception
and I knew I was the victim
of a beautiful deception
all my once exact beliefs
like tangled threads unravelled
I walked out, stunned and liberated
and so began my travels
Keep the river on your right
and the highway at your shoulder
and the front line in your sights, pioneer
Keep your eye on the road
remember what you told her
this is all in code, my dear
You better get yourself a coat
said the handsome taxi driver
and he sighed like seven bridges
like a natural-born survivor
as we drove into the night
I could feel the forest jangling
all the choices laid before me
and their consequences dangling
We came upon a stricken ship
that must have once been splendid
the captain as he died said "Boys,
our revels now are ended"
I heard a wild holy band
playing jazz that was outrageous,
that invoked the days of rapture
when our love was still young and contagious
Keep the river on your right
and the highway at your shoulder
and the front line in your sights, pioneer
Keep your eye on the road
remember what you told her
this is all in code, my dear
In a dim-lit motel room
two sad lovers were discoursing
on the dignity of exile
and the merits of divorcing
she said "all certainty is gone"
but he leapt up, still denying,
cried "I won't believe the flame I lit
is dead or even dying"
She left him drooling in the dust
and with rucksack packed begun her
bitter journey to the border
which is where I wooed and won her
she was Aphrodite, Helen, Thetis,
Eve among the satyrs
She was Venus in a v-neck sweater
she was all that ever mattered
Keep the river on your right
and the highway at your shoulder
and the front line in your sights, pioneer
Keep your eye on the road
remember what you told her
this is all in code, my dear
Like Dean Moriarty's ghost
I came in quest of secret knowledge
in the winter of my journey
to a crumbling Druid college
there I read the books of lore
and contemplated in seclusion
but I took my leave embittered,
still in love with my illusions
In the drizzling Irish rain
as a tender dawn was breaking
in a doorway I stood spellbound by
the ancient music they were making
I took my breakfast with the Gods
on a blushing summer morning
till a wind blew them all away
I had misread every warning
Keep the river on your right
and the highway at your shoulder
and the front line in your sights, pioneer
Keep your eye on the road
remember what you told her
this is all in code, my dear
Under cold electric light
I watch the scenes mutating
like an old time frontier ballad
or a carousel rotating
As if in a moment from a film
with astonishing precision
the camera zooms in close
and a figure comes into vision
I'm in Tokyo, it's dawn
and it's raining hallelujahs
down the bright-lit neon canyons
along the sidewalks of Shibuya
I'm trying to take a stance
and rise above my contradictions
but I'm just a bunch of words in pants
and most of those are fiction
Keep the river on your right
and the highway at your shoulder
and the front line in your sights, pioneer
Keep your eye on the road
remember what you told her
this is all in code, my dear