Another Night at the Amsterdam

Another night at the Amsterdam
With the static TVs and the ghosts of the damned
Where sleep is given up to train whistles and church bells
That speak a lonely story that no one wants to tell

I find myself wandering the halls
Walking alone, the only way to hear the calls
The calls always coming from the floors below
Where the music is a revelation, the voices perfect in their flow and so…

At the centre of the night the women dance, there’s one whose hunger won’t contain
It’s brought out in her body, it’s buried in her veins
I want to ask if love has found her, I bet it has before
But by the way she twists herself she’s seen a closing door

She said “You’re an old soul to be so young
The downside of being old is you’re usually no fun.”
I said “I lost my innocence to the page, I wrote my way out of my youth
Out of my faith and out of truth
I cut my tooth
On the word.”

But now those words had failed me as I followed in her lead
The same as all the others, who for her love did bleed
Bleeding with their heartsick pens or bleeding with their swords
They were bleeding for the curse of love, or for its twisted rewards

Now back up in her room, the same static TV
The same smell of past fires that will burn perpetually
The collision of our bodies was just a small measure of fate
Either the stars were in alignment or the night had gotten late

“I believe in the Spirit” she said, then made a spot for me inside of her bed
I was knocked out by her mystery
But there’s things you don’t ask
And things you can’t see…

So what has this life done to you my sweet lady of sin?
How many scars are visible how many underneath the skin?
I wanted not to ask, to leave my heart upon the shelf
But I hadn’t killed the part of me she’d lost inside herself

She said “I’m haunted by all the things I’ll never be.
I’m haunted by the ghosts of the Twentieth Century.
I wanted just to live in the moment, but it passed me by so fast
And now I’m just another ghost with no future and no past.”

Another night at the Amsterdam
(x4)