Black Market Baby

from Mule Variations (Remastered) by Tom Waits

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lyrics

She lives in a house
that's way back off the road
There's a man with a lantern
and he carries her soul
A coal stove and a bed
A skillet and a hound
She drove a camel through
A needle
In this sinking board walk town

She's my Black Market baby
She's my Black Market baby
She's a diamond that
wants to stay coal
wants to stay coal

I swang out wide with her
on hells iron gate
Anything that you wanted
you could have
My eyes say their prayers to her
sailors ring her bell
Like a moth mistakes a light bulb
For the moon and goes to hell

She's my Black Market baby
She's my Black Market baby
She's a diamond that
wants to stay coal
wants to stay coal

There's no prayer like desire
There's amnesia in her kiss
She's a swan and a pistol
and she will follow you like this
In Moberly, Missouri at the
Iroquois Hotel
She checked in with the President
and she ran up quite a Bill
(Chorus)
She's whiskey in a teacup
She gives blondes a lousy name
She's a Bonzai Aphrodite
and a ticket back to Spain
She's a hard way to go
and there ain't no way
to stop
Every time you play the red
the black is coming up

She's my Black Market baby
She's my Black Market baby
She's a diamond that
Wants to stay coal
Wants to stay coal

credits

from Mule Variations (Remastered), released April 27, 1999

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