Crew Nights

Tear it down in double quick time
To get the 'a' truck shifted 'bout midnight
The locker rooms are empty but the strobo tuners
Still spin with their pitching lights

And someone with a yellow pass
Gives out precise directions as to where and when

And here am I with a drumstick
While young girls set to rendezvous and be recognized again
Tomorrow is an off day
'Be in Baltimore by Thursday' is the only law

There's a suite down at the hotel
Reserved for making merry with connecting doors
The lighting man's already improvised a bar
And printed invitations to the ball

Off-duty cops line corridors wearing tour T-shirts proudly
And the band may even call

Crew nights, no flashlights or folding knives
Best boots and road suits and nine lives

Feeling that it might be wrong to
Temporarily belong to the P.A. man
Some angel from the Midwest is regretting being
Undressed with no suntan

His Polaroid is snapping
The head carpenter is rapping on the gates of dawn
Sitting lonely with a warm beer
The girl with dental braces wishes that she hadn't gone

Crew nights, no bar fights or Reader's Wives
Thin walls and late calls and nine lives

Crew nights, no flashlights or folding knives
Best boots and road suits and nine lives