I Write Your Name Lyrics

I Write Your Name
By The Jim Carroll Band

Atlantic, 1984

See also: album details and audio clips

LYRICS INDEX

| “Love Crimes” | “(No More) Luxuries” | “Voices” |
| “Sweet Jane” (by Lou Reed)
| “Hold Back the Dream” |
| “Freddy’s Store” | “Black Romance” |
| ” I Write Your Name” | “Low Rider” | “Dance the Night Away”

Love Crimes

By Jim Carroll and Lenny Kaye

Hollywood looks good at night
The TVs get fine reception
But last night Jean told Steve
About her imminent conception

She wants a plum tree for the house, for their child
Stevie raised his head and said, “That’s wild!”

Stevie tried and tried
Jean would not comply
She said, “Your partying needs, you see,
Ain’t nothing to this seed in me
You make love a crime

Billy don’t live in his spirit
Billy don’t live in his heart
Billy walks around Times Square at night
His body is his art

Life is easy when you’re pretty and 16
Just make sure that your underwear is clean

Billy don’t ask why
He just stares at the sky
He says, “Love always leaves you bent,
This way I pay the rent.”
He makes love a crime

I still believe in romance
I just think there’s something missing
‘Cause last night just by chance,
I saw you and Ivan kissing

Jealousy rose up right
From its hole
Just when I had it all under control

Say goodbye, goodbye
‘Cause you’re both gonna die
Don’t ask me why
It’s all in your eyes,
You made love a crime

Don’t ask me why
It reflects in your eyes
You made love a crime

© Dr. Benway Music, ASCAP (1983)

(No More) Luxuries

By Jim Carroll and Paul Sanchez

Your uncle’s scandals shook the house of lords
Your daddy’s squeezed out as Chairman of the Board
No more doctors write you no more ‘scripts
No more intercontinental trips

No more luxuries
No more luxuries

No more crystal pistols up your nose
The dry cleaner wants money on the clothes
The Rolls Royce, my dear . . . need it be said?
If I were you I would think “Mo-Ped”

Refrain:
No more luxury . . .
No more luxuries
And all you are left with is me
Left with me
Left with me
No more luxuries

You gotta do it in a whole new way
But I’m gonna make a vow to stay
We gotta eat it off the floor a while
You don’t even have a phone to dial
Do it in a whole new way,
Honey, that’s the price we pay

Your necklaces have turned to centipedes
They slowly crawled away . . .
And the bar is empty and there ain’t no waiter
The ice all melts in the refrigerator
The dead meat drips
On the asparagus tips

There’s no more luxuries
You’re left with me
No more, no more
There’s no more luxuries

That article on you in Interview
It was dropped for a feature on Monaco’s Zoo
Calvin called, he wants his hand-made vest
And it’s snip snip to your American Express

No more luxuries
No more luxuries
And all you are left with is me
Just me, mon cheri

No more lunching out at “21”
What you get now comes inside a bun
“C’est la vie,” the color TV
That’s gone too, but I’ll stay with you

Repeat Refrain

© Dr. Benway Music, ASCAP (1983)

Voices

By Jim Carroll and Terrell Wynn

Bob drives taxis when the meter runs
Bobby hears the music when it’s done
He hears the voices
He hears the voices

Wheels on rain, lightning from the storm
Bobby takes the gas
Pedal to the floor
The voices
He hears the voices

Refrain:
Coming from the traffic,
Coming from the cube
Like the cry of babies
Passing through a tube
Voices run inside you

Jill breathes carbon trailing from the bus, it’s like
Staring in the eyes of Lazarus
The voices
She hears the voices

Like a starving whisper no one ever heard
Like an epileptic hummingbird
The voices
She hears the voices

Repeat Refrain

Sal and Liz sitting at the Zoo
Sal says “I do . . . but Liz do you
Hear the voices
Do you hear the voices?”

Everything relaxes, everything is gray
Trapped in glass . . . on display
The voices
They hear all the voices

Repeat Refrain

Gwynne is bored with all the rules and names
She wants her life to be a video game
The voices
She hears the voices

Too much controlThe have have not
Slide another quarter into the slot
The voices
She hears the voices

Repeat Refrain

© Jim Carroll Music/EarlMcGrath Music, ASCAP (1983)

Hold Back the Dream

By Jim Carroll and Brian Marnell

[Messed?] and peculiar
Dancing with Julia
I see no spare sky
This is the last try

The static from dreaming
Is only now seeming
To bring on disaster
I told you, I asked her
All she said was, “No”

Refrain:
Sometimes you need a matador
Sometimes you need a charging bull
The dust will rise and shield the sky
No dreams to push, no dreams to pull

Down to the bone
I was dancing with Mona
New stars are born she says
At the break of morning
Just before morning

I must be up and dressed to survive
It’s been a week now
I’ve had no sleep how
I think this maybe far
Only Good truly knows

Repeat Refrain 2 times

Hold back the dream

© Dr. Benway Music, ASCAP (1983)

Freddy’s Store

By Jim Carroll and Paul Sanchez

I’m walking Uptown
I hear a most peculiar sound
Like a seashell in my ear
Like the ocean was near
I go inside this store
To get my head clear

Once I’m inside the air is fresh as [a lie?] You are greeted by a civil servant
She is dressed in beads
She jots down your needs
And casually recedes

Look around
Take the elevator down
Take it down
Once you reach downstairs
They take special care of you
You cannot believe what you see
You know guns to stop time
Laid out in a line
445’s to Uzi-3’s

A man comes up in a uniform
He says, you were just who we were looking for
You heard the sound
Let me show you around
This place is big as some small towns

We got every gun beneath the sun
And the same for heavy munitions
We got the space to train
But we don’t know you’ll learn
But now take the time, just look around

Look around
Feel the water rushing down
Rushing down

Refrain:
But you better get ready
If you’re going to Freddy’s
If you’re going to Freddy’s store
You can lose or win
You can sink or swim
But you don’t know where or what for

But you better get ready
If you’re going to Freddy’s
If you’re going to Freddy’s store
It’s not exactly hell,
It’s more like Bechtel
They got only one item to sell

There’s a booth for dressing
Also used for confession
There’s a Jesuit on call here
Twenty-four hours a day
He can guide you to pray
To waylay your modern guilt and fear
You live by the sword, you die, etcetera
And the same goes for an M-15

But what the hell
When Freddy rings that bell
Just make certain that your weapon is clean
And pointing down,
Down to the ground

Can you live in the tropics?
Can you fight on the sand?
Have you compunctions to function
in a far off land?
Can you kill a despot in an African nation?
Can you bite the pill
if the operation don’t go down?
Down, if it don’t go down

And there’s a galley [. . . ?] [. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ?]
We don’t distinguish left or ust don’t ask about behind that door

You can stand on the corner
You can do the jerk
You can go to the disco
You can go berserk
But there are plenty of generals
And plenty of Shahs
Who drive a Coupe DeVille after the Coup de Etat

It’s up to you,
You got one chance to score
Everybody gets a little piece of war
Just don’t ask about behind that door
Hit the ground, get down
It’s coming down
The door is coming down

Repeat Refrain

© Dr. Benway Music, ASCAP (1983)

Black Romance

By Jim Carroll

Everything you ever wanted
Is passing with the driving rain
I died like a salamander
On my heart heavy like a chain
I been waiting here at the Uptown theater
And it’s all becoming clear that

Refrain:
It’s too much head
And not much heart
But if you think about the end
It might never get started
It’s a black romance
But it’s one more chance
And if you fight out of spite
You know that just ain’t right

Everyone you ever cared for
Is staying at the big hotel
I’m in the lobby with my hobby
And my rags and my bags
And the desk man rings a bell

I put a sign on my brain
that said, “Do not disturb”
But the maids keep walking in
Then they make these beds
Inside my head
I wish they’d throw everything out instead

Repeat Refrain

Little girl go out dancing
Little girl dance all night
Little girl dance to a love that’s pure
[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ?] I could hold your soul before a 1000 watt bulb
It wouldn’t shine back at me

Repeat Refrain

© Dr. Benway Music, ASCAP (1983)

I Write Your Name

By Jim Carroll and Wayne Woods

I write your name
Everywhere I go
Like a worn out code
Just to let you know

I write your name
On my loneliness
On the closet hook where you hung that dress

Don’t you see
You turn this trust
To wind and dust and it’s choking me

It’s hard to touch the sun
And be the only one, then watch it run away

I never thought a change could terrify this way
I love you twice you know
Once for work, once for play
So I got this pen
It doesn’t hurt me when

I write your name
On TV screens,
On empty plates, on magazines

I write your name
In San Francisco
On bathroom walls and New Wave discos

It’s hard to live in hate
There’s no day and night
There’s no time or date

You were gone like sweat and rain
Through my own two hands,
I write your name in vain

I can’t believe you meant
When you walked out of that door
To put off any chance to be with you once more

The only thing you left behind was terror
You’re like an echo in an empty mirror

I need the proof to show
To let them know, to let them know
I write your name

I write your name
With thick blue ink
On stones I throw just to watch ’em sink

I write your name
On a great wood beam
On an ancient ship in a fading dream

I write your name
On every move I make
On the things I fake, on my own mistakes

I write your name
On my naked fright
For the final time, I write your name tonight

I never knew a word
Could take it all away
And I wish I never heard
The words you had to say

But there is nothing left to find of you
I left behind the final clue
But I still have this pen
And every now and then
I write your name
I write your name
I write your name

© Dr. Benway Music, ASCAP (1983)

Low Rider

By Jim Carroll and Steve Linsley

Johnny’s trapping stars in his car
With the radio on
In the parking lot

Lily heard a sound
While they were going down
Someone on El Camino had been shot

Carmelita stared
She really cared for that boy
He meant a lot

Carmelita, she came over the border
Immigration man saw her
She wouldn’t take a short order
But it was so far behind her
She had her heart on the wire
She became a low rider

Immigration’s full of strange language strains
Rules Carmelita never learned in school
Not in school
But in the streets of Mexico
She came to know
That borderlines were made to walk through

Her daddy said you’re fine,
You’re not the water, you’re the wine
You can take and make it all new
So make it new

Carmelita, she came over the border
Immigration man saw her
‘Cause she refused to take a short order
But it was easy to find her
She joined the boulevard choir
When he became a low rider

Sometimes in the dark
Some things just go wrong
And it peels into the night just like a knife
Like a knife

They stab you so cold
the blood is bottled and sold
All she wanted was a radio to hold
But she said dying makes her feel so old

Carmelita, she came over the border
Immigration man snagged her
‘Cause she wouldn’t take a short order
But it was easy to find her
She joined the boulevard choir
When she became a low rider

© Dr. Benway Music, ASCAP (1983)

Dance the Night Away

By Jim Carroll and Allen Lanier

I smoke a cigarette
As I wait in the bath
And I wait for you
For an hour and a half
And I go to the window
Where the sky falls down in rains
And I look across the river
Where they dance the night away

I watch the couples
On the corner of town
Men dressed in black tie
The ladies in gowns
A taxi pulls up
Drives them across the street,
Takes them to a place
Where they dance the night away

Dance the night away
Dance the night away
Dance the night away

I crawl across the bed
Playing the radio low
Trying to forget
What I already know
And I want to sleep
But the song never ends
It comes from a place
Where they dance the night away

I reach in the drawer
And I take out respect
It doctors the sickness
I took years to perfect
And I feel sweet sleep
Like the shadows on a charm
Moves to my brain
Where I dance the night away

Dance the night away
Dance the night away
Dance the night away
Dance the night away
Dance the . . .

© Dr. Benway Music, ASCAP (1983)