Frost said once, "If you don't know
how a statement to end the poem on, end it with a question."
That sometimes gets you off the hook.
Oh, I don't pretend to be a trained singer like Lois.
The only reason I sing my own songs
is, if I didn't, who would?
Oh, I had a request to sing a ballad called "In a Prominent
Bar in Secaucus One Day," which you can sing either
to the tune of "Sweet Betsy from Pike"
or the tune of the North of Ireland Protestant comic song,
"The Old Orange Flute."
It's about the same tune.
And Secaucus, New Jersey is a place
where I guess they had air pollution before anybody
else heard of it.
I just picked it as a likely setting
for this poem, which takes place in a bar
and revolves around the character of an aging woman,
who has a number of bad habits.
She's an alcoholic and a junkie too.
And she's taken to street walking
to sustain these habits.
And her mind has begun to go.
Poor thing.
So she imagines a past more glorious
than any that really could have been.
And in most of this poem, she sings
her memories of this glorious past she never really had.
And she turns to the young women present in the bar.
And in the only crude language she's got,
she gives them some hard earned advice,
maybe not very good advice.
But anyway, she gives them that.
And the first stanza and the last stanza
are some other voice.
And everything in between is this woman's song.
"In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus One Day."
(SINGING) In a prominent bar in Secaucus one day
rose a lady in skunk with a top heavy sway.
Raised a knobby red finger--
all turned from their beer--
while with eyes bright as snow crust, she sang high and clear.
Now who of you'd think from an eye load of me,
that I once was a lady as proud as could be.
Oh, I'd never sit down by a tumbled down drunk if it
wasn't, m'dears, for the high cost of junk.
All the gents used to swear that the white of me
calf beat the down of the swan by a length and a half.
In the kerchief of linen I caught to me nose, ah,
there never fell snot, just a little gold rose.
I had seven gold teeth and a toothpick of gold.
Me Virginia cheroot was a leaf of it rolled.
And I'd light it each time with a thousand in cash.
Ah, the bums used to fight if I flicked them one ash.
Once the toast of the Biltmore, the Belle of the Taft,
I would drink bottled beer at the Drake,
never draught, and dine at the Astor on Salisbury steak
with the clean tablecloth for each bite I did take.
In a car like the Roxy, I'd roll to the track.
A steel guitar trio and a bar in the back.
And the wheels made no noise, they'd turn over so fast.
Still it took you 10 minutes to see me go past.
And when the horses bowed down to me that I might choose,
I bet on them all for I hated to lose.
Now I'm saddled each night for me butter and eggs.
And the broken threads race down the backs of me legs.
So let you hold in mind, girls, that your beauty must pass.
Like a lovely white clover that rusts with its grass.
Keep your bottoms off barstools and marry you young.
Or be left an old barrel with many a bun.
For when time takes you out for a spin in his car,
you'll be hard pressed to stop him from going too far.
And be left by the roadside, for all your good deeds,
to toadstools for tits and a face full of weeds.
All the house raised a cheer, but the man at the bar.
Made a phone call and up pulled a red patrol car.
And she blew us a kiss as they copped her away
from that prominent bar in Secaucus, NJ.