Tom Waits

Black Market Baby

Tom Waits


She lives in a house that's way back off the road
There's a man with a lantern and he carries her soul
A coal stove and a bed
A skillet and a hound
She drove a camel through the needle
In this sinking board walk town

She's my Black Market Baby
She's my Black Market Baby
She's a diamond who wants to stay coal
Wants to stay coal

I swang out wide with her on hells iron gate
Anything that you wanted you could have
My eyes say their prayers to her
Sailors ring her bell
When a moth mistakes a light bulb
For the moon and goes to hell

She's my Black Market Baby
She's my Black Market Baby
She's a diamond who wants to stay coal
Wants to stay coal

There's no prayer like desire
There's amnesia in her kiss
She's a swan and a pistol
And she will follow you like this
In Moverly, Missouri at the Iroquois Hotel
She checked in with the President
And she ran up quite a Bill

She's my Black Market Baby
She's my Black Market Baby
She's a diamond who wants to stay coal
Wants to stay coal

Well she's whiskey in a teacup
She gives blondes a lousy name
She's a Bonzai Aphrodite
And a ticket back to Spain
She's a hard way to go
And there ain't no way to stop
Every time you play the red
The black is coming up

She's my Black Market baby
She's my Black Market baby
She's a diamond who wants to stay coal
She wants to stay coal
My baby wants to stay coal, coal, coal
My baby wants to stay coal