New York Rain

I'm an "editor" - and this song is a good example as to why. The chorus came first, over a year before the rest. I wrote a few verses for it and nearly recorded it for "Suburban Post-Modernist," but the verses I had for it just didn't work the way I wanted them to. It wasn't til I stuck on some lines from an old, long-abandoned song in the chorus that it started to take shape, and the verses finally came around a good year or so after the rest. And version 2.0 is about a million times better than the original, which had the same first line, then veered off into small-town "surruralism." It's still a bit surrural, but much more cohesive.

NEW YORK RAIN

How're you doing, Jane? I'm just watching the news
it says it's coming down where you are and it sounds like it's true
you always kinda liked it when things were coming down around you
Lately I've been thinking of asking you guys
to send back all my letters, they're all just lies
that I don't want published in some collection after my demise.
Every now and then when I go downtown
I throw money at the yuppies just to see them bow
like we always used to do, Jane, do you still remember how?
If I have an old soul, that's just because they're cheaper used
and my feet always hurt and I'm always tired - these old ones always break on you
 
       CHORUS
 There's nothing down this road but an old abandoned bar
 and a church that's been boarded up forever
 I've been sitting watching TV news in my underwear all night

 and I just called up to ask you one quick favor:
 Won't you hold the phone
 up to the window, Jane?
 So I can hear the sound
 Of the New York rain

I saw a naked girl who looked like you today
in the window of a brownstone on Juniper Lane
but she was only there for half a second before she turned away
Do you still have that jacket that hung down to the floor
that your grandmother sent you just before the war?
Speaking of that, Kevin's back, but he doesn't look much like he did before.
You know that empty lot by the pizza place
on Cedar Avene that used to be the arcade?
I wrote my name in the dust just to watch it blow away.
Dust is all that's left of the old downtown today
the new neighborhoods are built without any sidewalk and all I ever think about is getting away
 CHORUS
 
Just one more thing, did you ever know
that the night you first left three years ago
I was standing there watching as your footprints slowly filled with snow?
 CHORUS