Billy Voltaire was a piano player up from Miami way

He used to play in the bars, he could sound like the stars

The ladies would pay and pay

Then one night he did wind up playin' in Havana town

And nobody knew, least Billy Voltaire that these were his final sounds.



'Cause he met up with Meritta, a dancer in from the Coast

Half woman, half child, she drove him half wild

He loved that lady the most

'Til one night he did find her in the arms of Shrimper Dan

So he pulled a knife, took poor Danny's life

And then he turned his own cold hand.



[Chorus:]

And it's just a Cuban crime of passion

Messy and old fashioned

Yeah, that's what the papers did say

It's just a Cuban crime of passion

Anejo and knives a slashin'

But that's what the people like to read about

Up in America, up in America.



Well, they never found Meritta, some people say she got ill

And Billy Voltaire had no one to clain min, he eas buried on pauper's hill

And no one talks about 'em no more, it happened just a week ago

But people get by and people get high

In the tropics they come and they go.



[Chorus]