Mortal City

Dar Williams

She never should have rented this apartment in the Mortal City

The cold comes though every crack she puts her hand up to

The radiator's broken, so she has to use electric heat.



And tonight was the first date with the brother of the guy she worked next to

He lived a couple streets away

He listened, he had things to say

She asked him up for dinner sometime

Sometime was tonight



The radio gave updates on the ice storm while she made the dinner

They said, from all the talk, you shouldn't drive or even walk

And this just in, we're asking everyone to turn off their power

They need it at the hospital.



She ran around pulling plugs, then she called him up

Maybe now they shouldn't meet, he said that he would brave the streets

She met him at the door with a blanket and a candle

Saying, I heard it on the radio, I had to turn my power off.



He said you're not the only one, the streets were dark tonight,

It was like another century

With dim lamps and candles lighting up the icy trees and the clouds and a covered moon.



She said what kind of people make a city

Where you can't see the sky and you can't feel the ground?



I tell you something, I have this feeling that this city's dying

He said, it's not dying it's the people who are dying

She said, yes, yes I think the people are dying and nobody cares.



We had all this technology our dreams were bold and vague

And then one city got bad planners, one city got the plague.



He asked why did you move here? She said, for the job

For the job and I've been so lonely here, so lonely

There's no one I can talk to, you know I don't even know your brother.



He smiled and said, sometimes at night I walk out by the river

The city's one big town, the water turns it upside down

people found this city because they love other people

They want their secretaries, they want their power lunches.



And think about tonight, I heard the same n