The History of Excuses

I got a book of photographs from old Sing Sing
They used to say upstate, and that's what they'd mean
It's such a prettier name for such an awful place
And every page you're looking at another blank face
And you know, you have to find a way to pass time
And that's what I've been doing for a while now, baby
I've been marking each day with the light on the wall
And waiting by the telephone to take that call

And you try to change my mind,
About to choose this
'Cause you know too well
The history of excuses

Looking the clean
To that liquor machine
That can jingle their coffers
All gold bus tweed
And jingle the heavens
And driving the bus
'Cause there's hatches in the back
And nothing but this whole hook
And you know, I wish that
I could change it with a vote
But I never found myself
On the right side of the polls
You got a dream, well,
I'm out in the open
And there's mountains
And trees and the smell of the ocean

I try to change my mind,
About to choose this
'Cause you know
Too well the history of excuses

I'm down riding on a Hudson River train
I'm at the window as we're passing
By the Rockefeller Estate
I used to buy up all
The houses just to clear 'em away
'Cause they cluttered the view of the far palisades
Now I came by one house, let alone a valley full
And my only view is of some blank wall
It gets tired of being confined
And waiting around in holes,
I got you for tied

And I try to change my mind, about to choose this
'Cause you know too well the history of excuses