Lonely Street

Sometimes when I'm walking down this lonely street,

Well, it sure don't seem like twenty years,

Since I went walking down this lonely street

And the smell of perfumed ladies filled the air



This street ain't got no name, dead end is in the river,

And I lived where I hated life day by day,

There wasn't nothing I could do to shake a cold night shiver,

'Cause to move up Lonely Street you had to have some say



Gambling is bad luck down on Lonely Street

And it sure ain't no place to be when a man gets sore

You know I killed a man and I paid all I can,

With twenty years on a chain gang,

For the flesh and the blood on that jailhouse floor



Sometimes when I'm walking down this lonely street

I get caught up in a dream that won't let me go

And as the bright lights flash up and down this lonely street

My mind rolls back the years long time ago



I see my baby stumblin' around with tears in her eyes

And as I reach out for her she falls on the floor

She mumbles through bloody lips about a bad man, robber, raper,

And in my gut I know I got one to score



The word was comin' down, down on Lonely Street

That the bad man was a dead man if he crossed my trail

Every night I'd walk up and down this Lonely Street

I get stinkin' drunk, and always in jail,

One night they threw me in with a man they called the mangler

He was caught on the street makin' some old whore,

I remember he was quite proud of that,

So half-crazed I shot him,

And I cried in the blood on that jailhouse floor.