No Woman Around

On the main streets and the avenues In the condos white as knuckles bruised With the carmine of the busy liquor bars There's a dark and mystic beauty To these inner-city girls That slide by in the velvet of their cars Through the dance halls and the shopping malls And the subways filled with Dresden dolls To the school of fallen angels on the ground The whole city's just an expensive whore A forest nymph with a pompadour But there ain't no woman around No, there ain't no woman around No, there ain't no woman around Well, I'm surrounded by these girls But there just ain't no woman around And the girl that fills my bed Will hear the words I should've said To the only true love I ever found I'll pretend that make-up in her purse Is a day-dream, not a curse That comes just to kick me down I can still taste the youth of her kiss Maybe it's the childhood that I missed The first time around there's a weird shape to her charms There's a strange meat on her arms But there ain't no woman around No, there ain't no woman around No, there ain't no woman around Well, I'm surrounded by these girls But there just ain't no woman around Sometimes I feel I'm running Like a fever through the night And I've run myself straight into the ground I miss your smile, your name And your breath on my skin And I'm lost and alone in this crowd From the locks and curls and strings of pearls To the drunk and eager, jelly girls It's an all-day floor show Matinee in town And it suddenly occurs that I'm surrounded by these girls But there ain't no woman around No, there ain't no woman around No, there ain't no woman around Well, I'm surrounded by these girls But there just ain't no woman around