When first I came to Louisville, some pleasure there to find A damsel there from Lexington was pleasing to my mind Her rosy cheeks, her ruby lips, like arrows pierced my breast And the name she bore was Flora, the lily of the west.
I courted lovely Flora some pleasure for to find But she turned unto another man whose sore distressed my mind She robbed me of my liberty, deprived me of my rest Then go, my lovely Flora, the lily of the west.
Away down in yonder shady grove, a man of high degree Conversin' with my Flora there, it seemed so strange to me And the answer that she gave to him it sore did me oppress I was betrayed by Flora, the lily of the west.
I stepped up my rival, dagger in my hand I seized him by the collar, and bodly made him stand Seing mad by desperation I pierced him to the breast All this for lovely Flora, the lily of the west.
I had to stand my trial, I had to make my plea They placed me in the witness box and then commenced on me Although she swore my life away, deprived me of my rest Still I love my faithless Flora, the Lily of the west.
Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet? We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it Lights flicker from the opposite loft In this room the heat pipes just cough The country music station plays soft But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off Just Louise and her lover so entwined And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind
In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman's bluff with the key chain And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the "D" train We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight Ask himself if it's him or them that's really insane Louise, she's all right, she's just near She's delicate and seems like the mirror But she just makes it all too concise and too clear That Johanna's not here The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place
Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously And when bringing her name up He speaks of a farewell kiss to me He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall How can I explain? Oh, it's so hard to get on And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn
Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues You can tell by the way she smiles See the primitive wallflower freeze When the jelly-faced women all sneeze Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze I can't find my knees" Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel
The peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him Sayin', "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him" But like Louise always says "Ya can't look at much, can ya man?" As she, herself, prepares for him And Madonna, she still has not showed We see this empty cage now corrode Where her cape of the stage once had flowed The fiddler, he now steps to the road He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed On the back of the fish truck that loads While my conscience explodes The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain
