The History of Excuses

I got a book of photographs from old Sing Sing

They used to say upstate, and that's what they'd mean

It's such a prettier name for such an awful place

And every page you're looking at another blank face

And you know, you have to find a way to pass time

And that's what I've been doing for a while now, baby

I've been marking each day with the light on the wall

And waiting by the telephone to take that call

And you try to change my mind,

About to choose this

'Cause you know too well

The history of excuses

Looking the clean

To that liquor machine

That can jingle their coffers

All gold bus tweed

And jingle the heavens

And driving the bus

'Cause there's hatches in the back

And nothing but this whole hook

And you know, I wish that

I could change it with a vote

But I never found myself

On the right side of the polls

You got a dream, well,

I'm out in the open

And there's mountains

And trees and the smell of the ocean

I try to change my mind,

About to choose this

'Cause you know

Too well the history of excuses

I'm down riding on a Hudson River train

I'm at the window as we're passing

By the Rockefeller Estate

I used to buy up all

The houses just to clear 'em away

'Cause they cluttered the view of the far palisades

Now I came by one house, let alone a valley full

And my only view is of some blank wall

It gets tired of being confined

And waiting around in holes,

I got you for tied

And I try to change my mind, about to choose this

'Cause you know too well the history of excuses