madman

 Verse 1

There’s a man on the corner with a newspaper crown,
talking to angels as the rain comes down.
He says the moon’s got wires and the stars all bleed,
and the city’s just a dog with a chain it don’t need.

He laughs at the traffic, he cries at the light,
says the dead take buses through the middle of the night.
Everybody walks by with their eyes on their shoes,
but he sees the future in a puddle of blues.

Chorus
Oh, madman, madman, what do you know?
You see the river where the hard streets flow.
You see the fire underneath the snow,
you see what nobody sees.

Verse 2
He had a name once, maybe Joseph or John,
maybe he left it where the saints have gone.
He had a lover with a cigarette voice,
she said, “You can be free, but you don’t get a choice.”

Now he writes down sermons on a ten-dollar bill,
says God got tired and the devil got still.
He points to the window of the old drugstore,
says, “There’s a door in the glass, but it ain’t a door.”

Chorus
Oh, madman, madman, what do you know?
You see the thunder where the wild weeds grow.
You hear the choir in the undertow,
you see what nobody sees.

Bridge
And maybe he’s broken, maybe we’re blind,
maybe truth is a beggar we left behind.
Maybe the prophets all mumble and shake,
while the honest men smile for the cameras’ sake.

Verse 3
Last night he shouted at the courthouse wall,
said, “The kings are naked and the towers will fall.”
The cops just laughed, and the bankers grinned,
and the preacher sold tickets to the end of sin.

By morning he vanished with the garbage trucks,
left a note on the sidewalk in cigarette dust:
“When the clock strikes nothing and the blind birds sing,
you’ll remember I warned you about everything.”

Final Chorus
Oh, madman, madman, where did you go?
Down through the wires where the lost lights glow.
Maybe you’re crazy, maybe you know,
you saw what nobody sees.

Outro
Yeah, you saw what nobody sees.
You saw what nobody sees.