Joe's
In Charlestown, they went down
fighting
As boatloads of redcoats dragged
fresh ordnance in, they still stood their ground
In Charlestown, there rose an Ice
King
To hack up the Boston cold and watch
it sail off, Calcutta bound
Visiting justice on gross ingrates
Daring to dream of the first free
state
Giddy to see the world swing
Round the hinge of your imagining
We slept on the floor of strangers
We piled in a bucking bus and headed
west to go door to door
We bid our desires derange us
We drank through a bright fall day,
then fell together, then drank some more
Strivers and poets and reformers
Skirmishes shaping their own borders
Skinny and brilliant and dumb
Thrilled at what we thought we might
become
CHORUS
But I’m going to go up to Joe’s
tonight
To watch the Sox on the plasma
screen, have some beers and sweet-potato fries
And I might get laid or get in a
fight
…Or talk sports with the other guys
And stare at the bartender with the
dark brown eyes
There’s something it seems I’ve
missed
But that doesn’t mean I think
there’s more than this
I’ll thunder upon the hilltops
I’ll rise like a mighty flood
I’ll fall like hail on the doubting
horde
I’ll charge at a German pillbox
I’ll dive for a drowning man
I’ll break the seals where the casks
are stored
Reckless, relentless, and refulgent
Fashioning virtue of indulgence
Able to say that until now
The world’s accorded with my will
But first I’ll go up to Joe’s …
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