Guitar Slinger Lyrics

So they kicked us out for playing too loud
I carried my amp out through the crowd
Some chick took a beer and threw it in my face
But I kept on walking
Now outside it was warm
There was a good crowd on the strip
We set our stuff down and had a smoke
Like we was waiting for a ride
And all the while I was thinking

You gotta keep moving in a mean mean town
It's better going nowhere than just standing around
By tomorrow morning I'll be leaving town
Well I'll go any place but I ain't going down

Now I called Shorty and Lefty
There was a bass man called Beans
We split to nail a rumor
About some work in New Orleans
A twenty fed the tank
Two bucks fed the band
Maybe we could make it
Down in jambalaya land

In a Meade Lux Lewis bar
That's where we found the job (yeah)
Knocking tinpan out for tips
Mostly to the mob
I said okay we'll take it
When they're drunk
We'll play the blues
Hey we'll get some shirts from the islands
And some of those Cuban rock 'n' roll shoes
And all the while I was thinking

You gotta keep moving in a mean mean town
It's better going nowhere than just standing around
By tomorrow morning I'll be leaving town
Well I'll go anyplace but I ain't going down

But when we played the lost highway
A juice head said we was hicks
And the whole bar began to beat us
With pool hall sticks
They got the radio out of the car
And they must have used a bomb
But when we piled in and gunned her
She still sang the sweetest song

Lefty woke among the bottles
And said North he could not come
We left him on Canal Street
Trading in his drums
And I saw Elvis hitchhiking
Out on the interstate
And Beans was getting paranoid
About our California plates
And all the while I was thinking

You gotta keep moving in a mean mean town
It's better going nowhere than just standing around
By tomorrow morning I'll be leaving town
I'll go anyplace but I ain't going down

A cruiser pulled us over
Right across the line
He booked us in as vagrants
In holding tank number nine
You learn how to flat pick
When you're looking at a forty four
You do the orange blossom special
Till the peel falls on the floor

The bass man had a bust
From back home in a raid
So it was just me and Shorty
Standing on main parade
We liquidized our assets
In a bar and did not talk
Then we hopped a non-stop greyhound
To the big bad beauty of New York
I woke up on Twenty Third Street
As he backed into the slot
I saw that me and Shorty
Had been robbed of what we got
Then a guy said through the window
This is the end of the line
I said brother I'm a guitar slinger and this is doin' just fine