Lonely Street

Sometimes when I'm walking down

This lonely street

Well, it sure don't seem like it's been twenty years

Since I went walking down

This lonely street

And the smell of perfumed ladies filled the air, yeah

This street ain't got no name

Dead end is in the river

And I lived where I hated life day by day

There wasn't nothing that I could do

To shake a cold night shiver

'Cause to move up Lonely Street you had to have some say, yeah

Gambling is bad luck

Down on Lonely Street

It sure ain't no place to be when a man gets sore

Yeah, 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

Yeah, yeah

Sometimes when I'm walking down

This lonely street

I get caught up in a dream that won't let me go

And as a bright light flash up and down

This lonely street

My mind rolls back the years long time ago

I see my baby stumblin' round

With tears in her eyes

And as I reach out to her

She falls on the floor

Yeah, yeah

She mumbles through bloody lips

About a bad man, robber, raper

And in my gut, I know i got one to score

Yeah, yeah

Tell you, baby

I need somebody

Oh, yeah

I need somebody

Yeah

Oh, I need it

And I need it

Yeah, yeah

And I need it

Yeah, yeah

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 and 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, 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