written by Bob Dylan

© W.B. Music (ASCAP)



When you're lost in the rain in Juarez and it's Eastertime too

And your gravity fails and negativity won't pull you through

Don't put on any airs when you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue

They got some hungry women there and they'll really make a mess out of you



Well if you see Saint Annie please tell her thanks a lot

I cannot move and my fingers they are all in a knot

I don't have the strength to get up and take another shot

And my best friend the doctor won't even say what it is I got



Sweet Melinda, the peasants call her the goddess of gloom

She speaks good English and she invites you up into her room

And you're so kind and careful not to go to her too soon

And she takes your voice and she leaves you howling at the moon



Well up on housing project hill it's either fortune or fame

You must pick one or the other though neither of them are to be what they claim

And if you're looking to get silly you better go back to from where you came

Because the cops don't need you and man they expect the same



Now all the authorities they just stand around and boast

How they blackmailed the sergeant-at-arms into leaving his post

And picking up Angel who just arrived here from the coast

Who looked so fine at first and she left looking just like a ghost



Well I started out on burgundy but soon hit the harder stuff

Everybody said they'd stand beside me when the game got rough

But the joke was on me there was nobody even there to bluff

I'm going back to New York City I do believe I've had enough