Tom Waits Live at the Rex in Paris. By far the best recording of the 'Invitation to the blues' ever made.
Photograph by Antoine D'Agata

Well she's up against the register with an apron and a spatula,
Yesterday's deliveries, tickets for the bachelors
She's a moving violation from her conk on down to her shoes,
Well, it's just an invitation to the blues


And you feel just like Cagney, she looks like Rita Hayworth
At the counter of the Schwab's drugstore
You wonder if she might be single, she's a loner or likes to mingle
Got to be patient, try and pick up a clue


She said How you gonna like 'em, over medium maybe scrambled?,
Anyway's the only way, be careful not to gamble
On a guy with a suitcase and a ticket getting out of here
It's a tired bus station and an old pair of shoes
This ain't nothing but an invitation to the blues

But you can't take your eyes off her, get another cup of java,
It's just the way she pours it for you, joking with the customers
Mercy mercy, Mr. Percy, there ain't nothing back in Jersey
But a broken-down jalopy of a man I left behind
And the dream that I was chasing, and a battle with booze
An open invitation to the blues


But she used to have a sugar daddy and a candy-apple Caddy,
And a bank account and everything, accustomed to the finer things
He probably left her for a socialite, and he didn't 'cept at night,
And then he's drunk and never even told her that he cared
And they took the registration, they took her car-keys and her shoes
And left her with an invitation to the blues


Cause there's a Continental Trailways leaving local bus tonight, good evening
You can have my seat, I'm sticking round here for a while
Get me a room at the Squire, and the filling station's hiring,
And I can eat here every night, what the hell have I got to lose?
Got a crazy sensation, go or stay? now I gotta choose,
Im going to accept your invitation to the blues.

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