"The Last Time I Saw Richard"



[Originally by Joni Mitchell]



The last I saw Richard was in Detroit '68 and he told me, "All romantics meet the same fate someday: cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe." "You laugh," he said, "you think you're immune, well go look into your eyes they're full of moons, you like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you all those pretty lies, pretty lies, when you gonna realize they're all just pretty lies, only pretty lies?" Put a quarter in the Wurlitzer and he pushed three buttons and the thing began to whir and the barmaid came by in fishnet stockings and a bowtie and said, "Drink up now, its getting on time to close." "Richard you haven't really changed," I said, "just now that you're romanticizing some kind of pain that's in your head, you've got tombstones in your eyes but the songs you picked to dream on, listen, they speak of a love so sweet. Love so sweet, when you gonna get yourself back up on your feet? Oh love can be so sweet, love so sweet." Richard got married to a figure skater and her bought her a dishwasher and a coffee percolator, and now he drinks alone most nights with the TV on and all the house lights off, crying. "I'm gonna blow this damn candle out, I don't want nobody coming over to my table I got nothing to talk to anybody about" All good dreamers end this way, staring down bottles in dark cafes, dark cafes, only a phase before I get my gorgeous wings and fly away, only a phase, these dark cafe days.