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 the other kids
And was in different kind 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 to 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 had dreams 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 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 fucking 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 totalled 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, or a palm tree, or a lizard
Or saw an ocean, or heard David Bowie's "Young Americans"
And I saw the movie "Benji" in the theatre

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
My grandma was diagnosed at 62
Her kids stepped up to the plate for her
And were there the whole way through