just got out of a meeting where I talked about and listened to Dizee Rascal with the owner of a moving company downtown. He's from England and grew up there but had never heard of the Smiths, Morrissey, My Bloody Valentine etc. note to self: don't try to get orders from movers by bring up Morrissey. Talk about ZZ Top instead.

Change Change Change Change Change

The Ballad of Elizabeth Dark by Michael Smith

Let me sing you the ballad of Elizabeth Dark
I been workin on it since the time
We hung out at this coffehouse
In Rogers Park
Like two kids at a five & dime
She would read Dostoevsky
By the yellow moon
That hung like an orange in the tree
While I worked on the words
To the mystery tune
Of Elizabeth Dark & me

This was back in the days
Of the folk music craze
Lenny & poetry & jazz
Cats & chicks snappin their fingers
To Lord Buckley doing The Nazz
Kierkegaard Ginsberg
Sartre & free love
Parties to cover the rent
We all wanted to be existentialists
None of us knew what the hell it meant


Now I take the El to Loyola
And I walk along the Sheridan sand
Where the waves are breakin over the jetty
Where the wind is like an icy hand
Fyodor says that the criminal
Always returns to the scene of the crime
Maybe I'll see Elizabeth D one more time.

Her hair was long and flowing
A river of zen down her back
We had spaghetti with Ferlinghetti
And wine with Jack Kerouac
Things were real cool
One day I came home from school
And Elizabeth Dark wasn't there
No river of raven zen hair
No Dark at the top of the stairs

Now I take the El to Loyola
And I walk along the Sheridan sand
Where the waves are breakin over the jetty
Where the wind is like an icy hand
Fyodor says that the criminal
Always returns to the scene of the crime
Maybe I'll see Elizabeth D one more time.

Sometimes I get out my old bongos
Reminisce about makin the scene
Read my tarot
Tell my fortune from grounds
In a beat up espresso machine
I'm a beatnik lost in the future
Like a Model T Ford out in space
Still as in love with Elizabeth Dark
As the first time I saw her face

Now I take the El to Loyola
And I walk along the Sheridan sand
Where the waves are breakin over the jetty
Where the wind is like an icy hand
Fyodor says that the criminal
Always returns to the scene of the crime
Maybe I'll see Elizabeth D one more time.

Michael Smith lives in Chicago and is best known for writing "The Dutchman," popularized by Steve Goodman. His recent work has included the score for the Steppenwolf Theater Company's Broadway production of The Grapes of Wrath. Other recordings include a live coffeehouse album, the long out-of-print Juarez, which, strictly speaking, is not a Michael Smith album, but a trio (known as Juarez) comprised of Smith, Ron Kickasola, and Barbara Christopher Smith — interesting. In 2002, his pleasantly understated There was released on Wind River Records.

-This is a song my dad always had in rotation when I was younger. Living in Chicago and experiencing the feast and famine that is 2004...I can't remember when a song felt more pertinent to me. If you can find an mp3 of this song, listen to it. The words alone don't do it justice.