• She is walking down this two-lane,
    see?
    And stepping fine along
    those double yellow lines.
    Two-stepping, you might call it,
    side-stepping,
    doing her little jig,
    trying to get where she's going,
    moving 'round, but getting there,
    if you get me.

    And she's singing, hear?
    Singing blues--the darkest blue.
    You can do that,
    sure,
    sing your heart out
    like there's no tomorrow,
    not for you, anyway, not when
    you so down in the heels
    you can't see your eyelids
    through the salt water-fall.

    You can sing 'em high,
    she says,
    send those low-down blues
    high as a kite,
    high as the clouds up there,
    those big white ice-cream clouds
    over the back hills,
    the far hills, back a bit,
    not those wispy nothin's
    just overhead.

    You see those ice-cream clouds,
    hear those blues,
    and sing your eyes out
    till you get those babies
    up where they belong,
    carrying your weighed-down baggage--
    all thousand pounds of it--
    into a big, bountiful,
    flying aeroplane.

    Not a real plane, mind,
    just a head-thought,
    getting your sorrows into high gear,
    singing them out,
    your big baggage blues,
    singing them
    till you're gliding high,
    up where you wanted to be,
    wanted to be always,
    always knew it, needed it, wanted to be there all the days--
    night-times, day-times--
    night-times, too.

    Sure, she wants those
    night-times, too.
    Get on off'n this low-down runway
    and out the door.
    Real far.
    Real high.
    Real fast.