At night in the safety of shadows and numbers
Seeking some turf on which nothing encumbers
The buying and selling of casual looks
Stuff that gets printed in x-rated books
Your mother might have tried to understand
When you were hardly your daddy's little man
And you gave up saluting the chief
To find yourself some relief
Finely plucked eyebrows and skin of satin
Smiling seductive and endlessly Latin
Olympic body on dancing feet
Perfume thickening the air like heat
A transient star of gay bar fame
You quit your job and changed your name
And you're nearly beyond belief
As you hunt down a little relief
The seven foot black with the emerald ring
Broke up a fight without saying a thing
As the cops cruised by wanting one more chance
To send Jimmy Baldwin back over to France
And a trucker with kids and a wife
Prefers to spend half of his life
In early Bohemian motif
Playing pool and getting relief
My favorite couple was looking so fine
Dancing in rhythm and laughing in rhyme
In the light of the jukebox all yellow and blue
Holding each other as young lovers do
To me they will always remain
Unshamed, untamed, and unblamed
The altar boy and the thief
Grabbing themselves some relief
The altar boy and the thief
Catching a little relief
(Words and Music by Joan Baez) At night in the safety of shadows and numbers Seeking some turf on which nothing encumbers The buying and selling of casual looks Stuff that gets printed in x-rated books Your mother might have tried to understand When you were hardly your daddy's little man And you gave up saluting the chief To find yourself some relief Finely plucked eyebrows and skin of satin Smiling seductive and endlessly Latin Olympic body on dancing feet Perfume thickening the air like heat A transient star of gay bar fame You quit your job and changed your name And you're nearly beyond belief As you hunt down a little relief The seven foot black with the emerald ring Broke up a fight without saying a thing As the cops cruised by wanting one more chance To send Jimmy Baldwin back over to France And a trucker with kids and a wife Prefers to spend half of his life In early Bohemian motif Playing pool and getting relief My favorite couple was looking so fine Dancing in rhythm and laughing in rhyme In the light of the jukebox all yellow and blue Holding each other as young lovers do To me they will always remain Unshamed, untamed, and unblamed The altar boy and the thief Grabbing themselves some relief The altar boy and the thief Catching a little relief Explain Request ×
Lyrics taken from
/lyrics/j/joan_baez/the_altar_boy_and_the_thief.html
