Loudon Wainwright Iii No Sure Way
So I started out on High Street had to travel into town
like some Orpheus descending through a turnstile
underground
From Brooklyn Heights into Manhattan which was where I
had to be
Now you have to take the A train there's no more
service on the C
And when you are underwater sometimes the mind plays
tricks
And there beneath the East river it felt like the river
Styx
The first stop was Broadway Nassau a few more
passengers got in
We all sat no one was standing there somewhere we'd
never been
They say heaven's high above us hell's not far below
In that subway tunnel there was no sure way to know
Chambers Street a closed ghost station passing through
we seemed to glide
Like prisoners inside compartments on some house of
horrors ride
The walls were tiled I hadn't noticed they seemed so
antiseptically clean
But we knew what we were under the lights were on that
seemed obscene
And there I saw the three initials W, T, and then the C
I'd survived somehow was living but somewhere I
shouldn't be
At the next stop the doors opened and I emerged up
above ground
I was in another country Elysian Fields no, Chinatown
They say heaven's high above us hell's not far below
Standing on Canal Street there was no sure way to know
They say heaven's high above us hell's not far below
Standing on Canal Street there was no sure way to go