New Orleans
Music:
Lyndon Heart
Lyrics: Salome Strangelove

She says she turned one hundred last December
But doesn’t have a page of proof
The room is small, and she’s grateful for the space
These days her memory – it comes and goes
And when it rains she can’t stand to be alone

She’ll sing the blues on any day but Sunday
Or tell you how to make a Doberge sweet as sin
She says she misses all her old faded photographs
And the quilt she stitched when she was ten
Oh, she’ll tell you about almost anything she’s seen
But she won’t mention New Orleans

He draws pictures that’ll break your heart
In the closet off the hall
They call him Michael but they don’t his name
These days show shadows in the corners of his eyes
And when the wind blows he just lays down and cries

He tells stories in Crayola colors
Painful secrets trapped on paper
Stick figures lost amid dark waters
And the rest a frantic blur
He only speaks in reds and blues and greens
‘Cause he can’t talk ’bout New Orleans

A city left to drown
What happens to it now
The guns got there before the rescue teams
That’s what went down in New Orleans

Today the news is interviewing starlets
And flashing clips from football games
Who won the lottery
Who lost on the stock exchange
Who holds the hottest claim to fame
Twenty-four hour cycles up on every screen
So we don’t have to talk about New Orleans