Micheline

Micheline used to come to our house

And knock on our door

My dad would answer and say

"What do you want girl "

And she'd say

"Can I take a bath with Mark "

My dad would say

"My son ain't here "

Send her home and shut the door

And we'd all laugh

And Micheline would walk down the street glowing

And smiling like she just got

Paul McCartney's autograph

Her brain worked a little slower than the others;

She wore thick-rimmed glasses

She took a different bus to school than other kids

And was in different kid of classes

When she got older a neighborhood thug

Moved in with her

And started taking her welfare payments

He took her down to the bank

Helped her withdraw her savings

That was put away for her

And he went off with it

The cops caught up with him

He did a little time and cut too many years later

He's doing life in a Florida penitentiary with his father

Both of them for murder

Micheline Micheline

Micheline Micheline

Micheline Micheline Micheline

She wanted love like anyone else

Micheline Micheline Micheline

She have a dream like anyone else

My friend Brett

My friend Brett

My friend Brett

My friend Brett

He liked to play the guitar

But he had an awkward way of playing

Barre chords with two fingers spreading his index

And middle fingers really far apart

One day in band practice he dropped like a deer

Was shot and was flipping around like a fish

He had an aneurysm triggered by a nerve

In his hand from the strain he was putting on it

I went to see him in Ohio; he had a horseshoe

Shaped scar on his scalp and he talked real slow

We played pool like we did in our teens

And his head was shaved

And he still wore bell-bottomed jeans

In '99 I was on tour in Sweden when I called home

To tell my mom that I got a part in a movie

When she said "Mark

There's something that you need to know "

"Brett died the other day you really

Should send a letter to his mom and dad

" And I got on my train in Malmo

And looked out at the snow feeling somewhere

Between happy and sad

My friend Brett

My friend Brett

My friend Brett

My friend Brett

My friend Brett

My friend Brett

My friend Brett

He had a wife and a son

My friend Brett

My friend Brett

My friend Brett

He just liked to play guitar

And he never hurt anyone

My grandma

My grandma

My grandma

My grandma

My grandma

My grandma

Before she passed away we'd go

And visit her at my aunt's house when I was small

I couldn't bear the shape

She was in so at the top of the driveway

I'd sit in the car

One day I was just f**king around

When I put it in reverse and I was free-falling

I remember the car moving backwards;

My heart was beating and I blacked out

Another car was coming down the street and

I totaled them both and I got knocked out

My grandma

My grandma

My grandma

My grandma

My grandma

My grandma

First time I met her she lived in L A ;

I think it was Huntington Park

I made friends with a kid named

Marceau and another kid named Cyrus Hunt

We'd go downtown and get ice cream

And feed french fries to the pigeons

And talk to the handicapped vets from Vietnam

It was the first time I saw a hummingbird

A palm tree or a lizard

Or saw an ocean or heard

David Bowie's

"Young Americans"

And I saw the movie

"Benji" in theaters

My grandma my grandma

My grandma my grandma

My grandma my grandma

My grandma

I heard she had a pretty hard life

But after her first husband passed away

She met a man from California

And he treated her really nice

My grandma my grandma

My grandma my grandma

My grandma my grandma

My grandma

Was diagnosed at 62

Her kids stepped up to the plate for her

And were there the whole way through