Midnight Strikes Too Son

Ellis Paul

Cathy's hailing a cab like she's hailing a storm

unto the streets of New York City

ONce we're inside, it's a carnival ride

that brings a white knuckle kind of dizzy



She takes me up on her rooftop,

framed by a backdrop of watertanks and chimneys

she's wrapped round a cigarette,

lecturing etiquette, while I look in the windows

beneath me



We took in Saturday and it was medicine

and when nighttime came the skyline just swallowed

the moon

Cathy lays the blame on Thomas Alva Edison

and 60 million lightbulbs telling New York that

it's noon

Ah, midnight strikes too soon

Midnight strikes too soon



She says, "in New York City, They throw their

wishes into wells

'cause you can't see a star, unless one hit you when

it fell -- "

"And if even you caught one," I say, "Who

could you tell in this whole damn town who'd

believe you?"



She smiled like a cat would to a pigeon on the roof

She says, "I look into windows for universal truths"

and we drank in the moment like whiskey hundred

proof

"But if Orion fell," she said, "I'd tell you"



The view from her roof could make your head

just spin

it was like holding up the world in a tablespoon

and we drank it down,m every light in town

like the sweetest, kindest medicine

I made my wish on a satellite dish

but still midnight strikes too soon

Midnight strikes too soon



Cathy never seems to slow down

she's a hurricane working a skyscraper town

she laughs at me, says I'm suburban bound

but the truth is I live on a highway



I come to this city for the solace of her roof

Every window tells a story in cold hard truth

as the world spins beneath me, I ask it for proof

That I'm living my life in my own way

or will time just have its own say



Midnight strikes too soon

Midnight strikes too soon

Midnight strikes too soo