|
BLACK DIAMOND BAY
|
|
Up on the white veranda
|
She wears a necktie and a Panama hat.
|
Her passport shows a face
|
From another time and place
|
She looks nothin' like that.
|
And all the remnants of her recent past
|
Are scattered in the wild wind.
|
She walks across the marble floor
|
Where a voice from the gambling room is callin' her to come on in.
|
She smiles, walks the other way
|
As the last ship sails and the moon fades away
|
From Black Diamond Bay.
|
|
As the mornin' light breaks open, the Greek comes down
|
And he asks for a rope and a pen that will write.
|
"Pardon, monsieur," the desk clerk says,
|
Carefully removes his fez,
|
"Am I hearin' you right?"
|
And as the yellow fog is liftin'
|
The Greek is quickly headin' for the second floor.
|
She passes him on the spiral staircase
|
Thinkin' he's the Soviet Ambassador,
|
She starts to speak, but he walks away
|
As the storm clouds rise and the palm branches sway
|
On Black Diamond Bay.
|
|
A soldier sits beneath the fan
|
Doin' business with a tiny man who sells him a ring.
|
Lightning strikes, the lights blow out.
|
The desk clerk wakes and begins to shout,
|
"Can you see anything?"
|
Then the Greek appears on the second floor
|
In his bare feet with a rope around his neck,
|
While a loser in the gambling room lights up a candle,
|
Says, "Open up another deck."
|
But the dealer says, "Attendez-vous, s'il vous plalt,''
|
As the rain beats down and the cranes fly away
|
From Black Diamond Bay.
|
|
The desk clerk heard the woman laugh
|
As he looked around the aftermath and the soldier got tough.
|
He tried to grab the woman's hand,
|
Said, "Here's a ring, it cost a grand."
|
She said, "That ain't enough."
|
Then she ran upstairs to pack her bags
|
While a horse-drawn taxi waited at the curb.
|
She passed the door that the Greek had locked,
|
Where a handwritten sign read, "Do Not Disturb."
|
She knocked upon it anyway
|
As the sun went down and the music did play
|
On Black Diamond Bay.
|
|
"I've got to talk to someone quick!"
|
But the Greek said, "Go away," and he kicked the chair to the floor.
|
He hung there from the chandelier.
|
She cried, "Help, there's danger near
|
Please open up the door!"
|
Then the volcano erupted
|
And the lava flowed down from the mountain high above.
|
The soldier and the tiny man were crouched in the corner
|
Thinking of forbidden love.
|
But the desk clerk said, "It happens every day,"
|
As the stars fell down and the fields burned away
|
On Black Diamond Bay.
|
|
As the island slowly sank
|
The loser finally broke the bank in the gambling room.
|
The dealer said, "It's too late now.
|
You can take your money, but I don't know how
|
You'll spend it in the tomb."
|
The tiny man bit the soldier's ear
|
As the floor caved in and the boiler in the basement blew,
|
While she's out on the balcony, where a stranger tells her,
|
"My darling, je vous aime beaucoup."
|
She sheds a tear and then begins to pray
|
As the fire burns on and the smoke drifts away
|
From Black Diamond Bay.
|
|
I was sittin' home alone one night in L.A.,
|
Watchin' old Cronkite on the seven o'clock news.
|
It seems there was an earthquake that
|
Left nothin' but a Panama hat
|
And a pair of old Greek shoes.
|
Didn't seem like much was happenin',
|
So I turned it off and went to grab another beer.
|
Seems like every time you turn around
|
There's another hard-luck story that you're gonna hear
|
And there's really nothin' anyone can say
|
And I never did plan to go anyway
|
To Black Diamond Bay.
|
|
|
|
-----------------
|
BLACK DIAMOND BAY
|
| Unknown |
