Bruce Cockburn You Pay Your Money And You Take Your Chance Lyrics

You Pay Your Money And You Take Your Chance Lyrics

Woman cry -- chase man down street crying "No Chuckie, no, please
don't"
Another girl comes they run along St. Andrew, turn south on
Kensington
Meanwhile Chuckie beats it down the alley by the chicken
packer's
By the time I reach the corner they've all vanished
Just a deaf
kid talking like Popeye to a large fleshy laughing man in a blue shirt
You
pay your money and you take your chance
When you're dealing with love and
romance

Down the alley past the fire escape a woman is talking on the
telephone
Kitchen light spills out, laughter riding on its beam
In the
maze of moebius streets we're trying to amuse ourselves to death
Under the
deep sky that's squatting so close over us tonight
You'd think it was trying
to hatch us
The numb and confused
The battered and bruised
The counters
of cost
And the star-crossed
You pay your money and you take your
chance
When you're dealing with love and romance

Confused and solo in
the spawning ground i watch the confusion of friends all numb with
love
Moving like stray dogs to the anthem of night-long conversations, of
pulsing rhythms and random voltage voices
In spite of themselves, graceful
as these raindrops creeping spermlike across the car window
Stay or leave,
give or withold, hesitate or leap
Each step splashing sparks of red pain in
every direction
And through it all, somehow, this willingness that asks no
questions
You pay your money and you take your chance
When you're dealing
with love and romance.