Sweet Queen Jane

I got this feeling the other day, I wouldn't exactly call it nostalgia
But I ain't felt anything like that in a long long long long time
Maybe its cause I was listening to knocked out loaded over and over and over again
But I started thinking about a time when the cutest, sexiest, smartest, craziest girl in the world was mine

We could spend all day buried in bed with a dictionary, trying and failing to find a single word that you didn't know
And after we'd finished with the z's, we'd make long slow sweet love, and you'd come and come and come
Cause basically you didn't have no place left to go

I still remember how we met, we both liked Brenda Kahn, so you got a hold of that first album I made
You said you were gonna fly out from Berkeley to Philadelphia to see a show or two
I tried to act incredulous and flattered all at the same time, but it turns out that that's just the kind of things that those bipolar chicks on an upswing tend to do

The first time that we kissed was in front of a shelf full of flipper babies stuffed into jars of formaldehyde, right behind Chang and Eng Bunker's liver... or is that livers?
You were the first girl I'd ever met that thought the mutter museum was a romantic date
And later that afternoon when we made love, after eating that falafel with the awful tahini sauce, I had just gotten the call about Hamell on Trial, I was looking at the beautiful, sexy, brilliant, crazy, naked girl in my bed, trying and failing to recall a single day in my whole life that was even half this great

CHORUS
Sweet Queen Jane, Sweet Queen Jane
Sometimes the only truth I knew was the strength of your lies
Sweet Queen Jane, Sweet Queen Jane
You were my soulmate, these days I wonder if your still alive

Remember that talk Jesus and Elvis had with Einstein, heaven and hell, good and evil, you
Can't have black without at least a little tiny bit of white
And when your cute little pendulum would swing so low, I would try so hard to be the
Chariot for to carry you home at the end of those long grueling nights.

I was hanging out backstage at the TLA with Steve Earle he was tellin stories about
Townes Van Zandt and Mumia Abu-Jamal, I was trying hard just to look like a wasn't where I wasn't supposed to be
When you came bursting in wearing my coat holding your leg screaming something in Spanish, looking every bit the Mexican whore, punched me in the head, Steve looked over and said "dude, that's the kind of shit that constantly used to happen to me"

Well you told me you wanted to come up to New York with me, to watch me play that show in the east village, I couldn't have been no prouder driving up there with you in my front seat.
But 6 hours later I was driving home all alone, the last time I saw you, you were kissing that junkie, and telling me to fuck off on the corner of 9th and C.

Everyday these days not a day goes by when I don't see you in the old familiar places, and my heart either attacks me or else it just breaks
My wishing well and my moon above are that train song, and that other song, the one by Fred Eaglesmith, and just about every single movie that Angelina Jolie makes

Yeah I've been out with other girls, but you make Flannery O'Connor look like a friggin moron, so I just spend the whole night making obscure references and using big words
Like how Peter the Great would have thought you had a terrific smile, and how could you not know that there was a movie that had Spencer Tracy, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, and Cap'n Kirk, a little film I like to call Judgment at Nuremburg

CHORUS

All that talk about art and truth, truth and art, you never let me read your novel, and then you'd lie right to my face
But I guess its like one of those brainteasers you read in the books on long car rides, what do you do when a compulsive liar swears that she's telling you the truth, but you didn't stick around long enough to let me see the answers on your back page

One day I went to pick you up at the airport, you had some story about a baggage claim trauma in your childhood, so I promised to go to gate C-8 to meet your flight
Well I almost never heard from you again except for a single postcard from Bolivia, unsigned, it said "boy you really let me down, but I'll be alright."

Well you know I finally made it out to your promised land, you always told me how beautiful the colors were, but the colors didn't seem so bright with out you by my side up front.
And it wasn't you who showed me Salinas while playing me the Bakersfield sound, or amoeba or or the Hollywood Hills or San Francisco,
I always liked San Francisco, you invited me there for a party once

And now I've got some new ex-catholic asleep in my bed, and her novel isn't anywhere as good as yours, but her crank habit isn't anywhere near as bad
And its Bastille Day and I'm headed up to that same east village club to play a Woody Guthrie tribute, since you two share the same birthday and faulty wiring, I should be happy, but all I am is sad.

Cause even though I know we're better off without each other, because it seems improbable the laws of physics would allow two people to be worse, at least I don't think
I still find myself giving a wistful glance toward my machine when I come home late at night, looking for your special crystal meth and demerol 4am kind of blink

CHORUS