Letras de Canciones de Janis Ian
Bayonne Blues (Live)

I was raised in New York City,
Where the money grows on trees.
And the flowers all look gritty,
And the people look diseased.
Come up from New Jersey,
where I sung the Bayonne [3] Blues.
I watched the roller derby,
On the seven-thirty news.

I thought I'd be a folksinger.
I went down to MacDougal Street [4] ,
And Bleeker [4] , where the stars got stoned.
But the union hall was closed,
And the stars out on the road,
Making money singing anti-money songs.

I went back up to Broadway,
I took the IRT [5] .
Some old man in a raincoat,
Parked his body next to me,
"Do you want to make some money fast?"
And then he grabbed me by the ass.
I got derailed at Forty-Second street.

I asked somebody for the time,
She asked me to her room.
She said, "I've got a water bed."
I said, "I’ve got the flu.
You look just like a friend of mine,
I never liked too well."
She sold picture postcards,
Of the crack in the Liberty Bell.

I went into the Taco Bell,
To get myself some lunch.
They rushed me to the hospital,
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To have my stomach pumped.
Run over on the corner,
By a wheelchair with no horn.
I fell into a manhole,
And was baptized and re-born.

I moved out to Long Island,
Bought a color TV.
I watch the doctor shows,
I'm a soap opera queen.
I think I got pneumonia,
I'm sure I’ve got TB.
It may not be a hell of a life,
But it’s life enough for me.

[Instrumental to end.]


[BAYONNE BLUES (LIVE BAND VERSION) [1] ]
[Written by: Janis Ian]
[Performed by: Janis Ian]
[Appears on: Unreleased 3: Society's Child-2006 [2] .]

[1] Janis writes of this song, "I must have been around 14 when I started
this, just after my family moved to New York City. Everything in it
actually happened to me one weekend shortly after, and I remained in a
state of culture shock for a good six months! By the time I finished the
song I was in my late teens, a seasoned New Yorker, and I truly felt I'd
been 'raised in New York City,' even though I'd grown up in New Jersey. We
never lived in Bayonne, but my dad worked there for a while, and
'Farmingdale' and 'East Orange' just didn't scan."

[2] Transcribed from the track on this album.]

[3] Refers to the city of Bayonne, New Jersey.

[4] MacDougal and Bleeker Streets are in the heart of Greenwich Village
where most of the folk music cafés were located in the 1960s.]

[5] IRT stands for the Interborough Rapid Transit, which is part of the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), is New York City's subway
system.]

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