| Mary Beth is that fancy woman
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| Standing over there
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| The expression on her face
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| Is just like her underwear
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| Carefully chosen, easy to see through
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| 2 a.m. when the game is up Tempting to undo (?)
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| But dawn breaks on her sad smile
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| And I’ll see you around
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| All the little places around the town
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| Gabriel was painter
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| A good one in his youth
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| Between poverty and a hustle
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| He chose a substitute
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| Tenure and a greenhouse
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| And little trips to Mexico
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| An affair with a deep-eyed girl
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| Every couple years or so When he looks inside at what he hasn’t done
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| He comes tumbling down
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| To all the little places around the town
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| The university poets
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| Buzz around in their little japanese cars
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| They hit the parties for the out-of-towners
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| You don’t see them much at the bars
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| All their thin and stiff little books
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| Not too much to say
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| Yaking at eachother in the APR (?)
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| While the years slip away
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| The horseman passes by the classroom scene
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| And a cold wind blows around
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| All the little places around the town
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| Julie and me we see eye to eye
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| When we stand toe to toe
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| And I surely will not soon forget
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| That day in her studio
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| The colors all got brighter
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| Than the corona of the sun
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| It’s action painted while we moved it (?)
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| And still life when we was done
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| I’m always hoping I will run into her
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| When I’m out catting around
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| At all the little places around the town
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| The faculty wives they get gray and tattered
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| Like the books upon their shelves
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| They’re sitting around by their big bay windows
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| Reading fiction about themselves
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| Dreading the hour when they hear
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| That well-heeled step once more
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| And see those sad eyes through the glasses
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| He bought at the professor eyeglass store
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| Couldn’t she have shopped around a little longer
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| While she was out checking it out
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| At all the little places around the town?
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| Charley had a habit of going
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| Too many rounds with the wall
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| He’s drinking to celebrate the spring
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| He’s drinking to mourn the fall
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| He made it out to Colorado
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| When he got tired of the flat
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| I ain’t too worried about that boy
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| He don’t wear no cowboy hat
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| I sure miss him on these winter nights
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| When the blue snow settles down
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| On all the little places around the town
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| When you were here I never went
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| To any of these little joints
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| We spent all of our time outside
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| What else is the point
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| What else but the railroad tracks
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| Gleaming in the winter sun
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| What else but the spring graveyard
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| Showing the ghosts how it’s done
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| But you left like everyone does
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| And I found myself going down
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| To all the little places around the town
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| Well the lights go red, the lights go green
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| Traffic moves on through
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| The lights go up, the lights go down
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| You get a flash of who’s who
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| Who is true and who is one (?)
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| And who ain’t really sure
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| Who has seen too many times
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| What they’ve already seen before
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| Who is free to come and go And who will forever be bound
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| To all the little places
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| All these little places
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| All the little places around the town |