Tom Russell Touch Of Evil
The night my baby left me I crossed the bridge to Juarez avenue
Like that movie "Touch of evil" I got the Orson Wells,
Marlene Dietrich blues
Where Orson walks in to the whore house and
Marlene says "Man, you look like hell"
And Orson's chewing on a chocolate bar
As the lights go on in the old Blue Star hotel
"Read my future" says old Orson, "down inside the tea leaves of your cup"
And she says "You ain't got no future, Hank,
I believe your future's all used up"
Why don't you touch me anymore? Why don't you touch me anymore?
Why do you run away and hide? You know it hurts me deep inside
Why do you close the bedroom door? This is a brutal little war
What good is all this fightin' for if you don't touch me anymore?
They shot "A touch of evil" in a Venice, California colony
And I grew near those dead canals
Where they filmed the longest pan shot ever made
Now I'm thinking about the movie,
the bar I'm in, the bridge, the Rio Grande
Now I'm thinking about my baby and the borderline 'tween a woman and a man
I was drunk as Orson Wells the night I crawled backwards out the door
I was screaming "Baby, baby how come you touch me anymore?"
Oh, someone rolled the credits on twenty years of love turned dark and raw
Not a technicolor love film, it's a brutal document, it's film noir
And it's all played out on a borderline and the actors
are tragically miscast
Like a Mexican burlesque show where the characters are wearing comic masks
Oh, it's love and love alone I cry to the barmen in this Juarez waterhole
As we raise a glass to Orson and "A touch of evil" livin' our souls
