I Need a Line to the Underground

I need a line to the underground

I need to find what I have found

What's in my hands, what's in my mind

I didn't know what I would find

But now it's there and I can't lose

The spotter in the silent shoes

He passed me off to a leather jacket

Down a cul-de-sac; I doubled back

Ducked in an alley when he played it off

I left the letter in an old dead-drop

Burst into light, head across town

I need a line to the underground

I bought a ticket in a busted name

See who will come and play my game

Changed my clothes in a bathroom stall

Took up a perch and watched it all

Three men in coats hopped on the rail

I bought a paper and tapped the mail

Box I had left a chalk mark on

Then turned and climbed the stairs and gone

I watched it all without a sound

I need a line to the underground

I need a line to the underground

I need to find what I have found

I left my beard in a sandwich bag

Fought all I feared, caught a cab

I said "Pull over" in a foreign tongue

I walked three blocks I caught another one

Saw a light blink in a German car

Got out and went down to a basement bar

Ordered three whiskeys, singles, fast. He said, "That's funny"

He said, "Why?" I drank them, I said, "No money"

He laid the papers with instructions down

I had my line to the underground

I need a line to the underground

I need to feel what I have found

I read the code it was just one word

"Mother Road" - lit a match and burned

Took the stairs to a 3rd floor safe

House-picked the locked, drew the drapes

A woman handed me the New York times

My envelope was safe inside

She said, "A life in chains, or one that's free?"

I said, "You choose." She said, "Come with me"

I'm still not sure which I have found

Living in the underground