Bought a house from a man in New York

This house had four small apartments in it when he got it in '78

Said he had seen children grow old and elderly people die in each little apartment

Said he didn't change the wooden floors for sixteen years 'cause he knew where each scuff came from

We talked for a bit and he took me around the corner and told me everything had gone down, down stream from him

Like that cold water of his life had gone up his back, down his front, and around his legs

And before he could drink any of it, it'd already passed him by

I went home after drinkin' with him a bit, made a pallet and a fire on the floor

I closed my eyes right there in the middle of one of the coldest nights Manhattan had seen all winter

I imagined my dog Jack and me back home cuttin' through some Oklahoman landscape

With greens, and moisture, and heat and finding some stream runnin' right there in the clearin'

He jumped, chasin' something naturally, and I just let that water run past my shoulders

Under my neck and down to my feet, and down, down stream

Every good and bad thing that ever happend to me floating down, down stream

They're just floatin', the Tulsa bars and all the throw up in 'em

The ducks we killed, the fights we had, the New York 3 a.m.s

The piano through my neighbors wall and the Italian restaurant voices mashin' together through the opposite one

My mother's couch that I sang her songs on

The African desert heat, runnin' from the police in school, and my father's swollen pride

They're just floatin' by, every woman I had ever loved and every man I had ever called a brother

The New Year's fireworks and the July Fourth's too, every failure and every ugly, little victory

Screamin' off the Grand Canyon, and hearin' one of my best friends had gotten into a wreck under some cold, dark western sky

My sister laughin', the streets of London, and my band playin' sweet notes and hundred thousand people

I took a big gulp and I wondered if all that water led to more streams, and those led to some big ocean somewhere

Prayed all that suffering and all those belly laughs led to some big ocean somewhere

Soon as I took that big gulp, my eyes opened to a fire in that livin' room

The fire department came, and hydrant filthy New York water was goin' up my back, down my front and down, down stream

And so were we