From the album "Inner City Front")



Woman cry -- chase man down street crying "No Chuckie, no, please don't"

Another girl comes they run along St. Andrew, turn south on Kensington

Meanwhile Chuckie beats it down the alley by the chicken packer's

By the time I reach the corner they've all vanished

Just a deaf kid talking like Popeye to a large fleshy laughing man in a blue shirt

You pay your money and you take your chance

When you're dealing with love and romance



Down the alley past the fire escape a woman is talking on the telephone

Kitchen light spills out, laughter riding on its beam

In the maze of moebius streets we're trying to amuse ourselves to death

Under the deep sky that's squatting so close over us tonight

You'd think it was trying to hatch us

The numb and confused

The battered and bruised

The counters of cost

And the star-crossed

You pay your money and you take your chance

When you're dealing with love and romance



Confused and solo in the spawning ground i watch the confusion of friends all numb with love

Moving like stray dogs to the anthem of night-long conversations, of pulsing rhythms and random voltage voices

In spite of themselves, graceful as these raindrops creeping spermlike across the car window

Stay or leave, give or withold, hesitate or leap

Each step splashing sparks of red pain in every direction

And through it all, somehow, this willingness that asks no questions

You pay your money and you take your chance

When you're dealing with love and romance