The Mortal Groove

It's half price off on last year's models
 There's a geeseful sky and roads of potholes
 The town is lean and getting leaner
 There is a rank and file demeanor
 Countless souls in unkind places
 Wearing fixed and angry faces
 I tell myself I don't belong
 But I am a ghost in this prayer gone wrong...
 There's a new restaurant and a new coffee shop
 It seems this street is looking up
 The new sign says there's "No Smoking"
 "No Shirt, No Service" and "Spanish Spoken"
 This town was built by steel blue collars
 It now competes for the tourist dollars
 Love may make the world go round
 But like gravity here we're still money bound...
 There's talk show hosts and wartime markers
 Ways of thinking that force the darkness
 Bus stations have sad reputations
 Coin laundry pawnshop conversations
 Each time this year I hit this mood
 It's cabin fever or the mortal groove
 Before the spring before winter's done
 When something's lost or just hasn't come...