Lonely Street by Kansas

Sometimes when I'm walkin' down this lonely street
Well, it sure don't seem like twenty years
Since I been walkin' down this lonely street
And the smell of perfumed ladies filled the air, yeah

This street ain't got no name, a dead end in the river
And I lived where I hated life day by day
There wasn't nothin' I could do to shake a cold night shiver
'Cause to move up lonely street you had to have some say, yeah

Gamblin' is bad luck down on lonely street
Sure ain't no place to be when a man gets sore, eh yeah
You know I killed a man and I paid all I can
With twenty years on a chain gang
For the flesh and the blood on that jailhouse floor, eh yeah

Sometimes when I'm walkin' down this lonely street
I get caught up in a dream that won't let me go
And as the bright lights flash up and down this lonely street
My mind rolls back the years of long time ago

I see my baby stumblin' around with tears in her eyes
And as I reach out for her she falls on the floor, yeah yea
She mumbles through bloody lips about a black man, robber, raper
And in my gut I know I got one to score, yeah yea

Take it baby
Yeah yeah
I beat somebody
Oh yeah
I need somebody, yeah
I'll be there
I'll be there
I'll be there
Okay

The word was comin' down, down on lonely street
That the black man was a dead man if he crossed my trail
Every night I'd walk up and down this lonely street
I get stinkin' drunk always in jail

One night they threw me in with a man they called the Mangler
He was caught on the street rapin' some old whore, yeah
I remember he was quite proud of that so half crazed I shot him
And I cried in the blood on that jailhouse floor

Oh I don't want no more
Oh, yeah yeah

© DON KIRSHNER/BLACKWOOD MUSIC PUB

Lyrics provided by Gracenote