Broken Like Brooklyn

Once I dreamed I was Ponce de Leon
and I'd grown so bitter and old
You whispered "Baby, I am Eureka
without any redwoods or gold"
So together we packed up the Airstream
with Pepsis, Pall Malls and Moon Pies
and we lassoed the San Joaquin River,
kicked back, went along for the ride

I dreamed faith was our precious cargo,
determination our boat
We sailed straight on through troubled waters
and around the Cape of Good Hope
Then we dressed ourselves in fringed buckskins,
having leveled that brownstone of ours
Amid the Palos Colorados,
we slept 'neath a blanket of stars

Wake up broken like Brooklyn,
the year The Bums left
in The Bronx on a cold day
while our Boys tan out West

Now we fly over junkyards and factories,
Dennys and transient hotels
above the churches and bars and video stores
the black smoke and slaughterhouse smells
Toyuching down in the golden Sierras,
we ate spinach quiches grown there
I wove a crown of boysenberries
through your lemon-scented hair

Blonde girls in bikinis and snow skis,
in the desert, cashed in their chips
then filled the Rose Bowl with guacamole --
we took our clothes off and went for a dip
Bobbed and weaved like old Trolley-Dodgers
after reading a policeman his rights
Then we followed the Duke of Flatbush
and scaled the Boyle Heights

Woke up broken like Brooklyn
the year The Bums left
in The Bronx on a cold day
while our boys tan out west
Always broken like Brooklyn
after losing the best

Old sun-bleached bleachers at Ebbets
tore the hearts from our chests
(Woke up broken like Brooklyn)
tore the hearts from our chests
(Woke up broken like Brooklyn)