When you gave me your look I went after you
As if it was my last chance
(I was being myself)
I thought I was making myself a fool
But it turned into romance
(You actually liked me!)
I was walking the Triangle with the guys
All around a Sunday night
When you and your best friend came out of the movies
And I asked you for a light
(Light my fire)
We started walking, we started talking
And I knew it wouldn’t be too long
We wound up at the bar and got pleasantly smashed
And you heard me sing my song
(And here it goes)
Another day, another hundred dollars
It all swirls down the drain
(Richest guy in the world, huh?)
My heart is controlling everything I do
And I never get a chance to use my brain
(No room for thinking)
I swore it would be just an hour baby
Nine o’clock and I’d be by your side
Now it’s ten past midnight
And I’m still trying to hitch a ride
(I’m stuck in Tel Aviv)
I get to your house, I open the door, I rush down the hall
I run up the stairs all out of breath
My breath reeking of smoke and alcohol
Each step taking me one closer to death
(No one’s home)
Now I’m standing like an idiot in front of your house
Waiting for you to come home
I’ll bet that when you finally come, you’re gonna tell me
That I look so cute and you don’t wanna be alone!
(Where the hell were you?)
I work all day surrounded by sneezes and sleazes
To handle them all I gotta be very deft
‘Cause these guys, they act like they fell from the moon
And they can’t tell their right from their left
(Scheisa de-moicha)
When this long crazy working day is over
I look forward to being with you
But when I call you up to ask you what you wanna do tonight
You’ll say you’re sick in bed with the flu
(Same old story)
Where have I heard all this before?
Believe me, none of this is new
(But I keep on falling for it)
So why am I stringing myself up on the line?
Because I think I’m in love with you
(So let’s sing that song one more time!)
©2024 The Hesh Inc.
This one dates back to my earliest years of songwriting. The music came about when I was noodling on the piano at home sometime in the early 1980s. It has an uptempo 6/8 shuffle rhythm and includes a mishmosh of bits and pieces from several Springsteen and J. Geils songs. It went for awhile without lyrics; I brought it to a rehearsal of the first band I played in, REALITY SHOCK, in Jerusalem, and we jammed on it a few times, but ultimately it went nowhere. About two years later the words came to me after an incident described in the fourth verse; the rest of the lyrics came to me shortly afterward as I recalled other such events that made up my social and romantic life, such as it was, during my post–high school, pre-army years.
About a decade later my friend and musical partner, Izzy Kieffer (who had been part of Reality Shock and had played the drums during those rehearsals when I originally tried introducing the song), and I reconvened at the Jersey Shore, and in short order the finished version became part of our band's setlist. We played it at numerous gigs during the summers of 1993 and 1994, but alas, we never recorded it.