Ellis Paul: Midnight Strikes Too Soon

Cathy's hailing a cab like she's hailing a storm
unto the streets of New York City
ONce we're inside, it's a carnival ride
that brings a white knuckle kind of dizzy

She takes me up on her rooftop,
framed by a backdrop of watertanks and chimneys
she's wrapped round a cigarette,
lecturing etiquette, while I look in the windows
beneath me

We took in Saturday and it was medicine
and when nighttime came the skyline just swallowed
the moon
Cathy lays the blame on Thomas Alva Edison
and 60 million lightbulbs telling New York that
it's noon
Ah, midnight strikes too soon
Midnight strikes too soon

She says, "in New York City, They throw their
wishes into wells
'cause you can't see a star, unless one hit you when
it fell -- "
"And if even you caught one," I say, "Who
could you tell in this whole damn town who'd
believe you?"

She smiled like a cat would to a pigeon on the roof
She says, "I look into windows for universal truths"
and we drank in the moment like whiskey hundred
proof
"But if Orion fell," she said, "I'd tell you"

The view from her roof could make your head
just spin
it was like holding up the world in a tablespoon
and we drank it down,m every light in town
like the sweetest, kindest medicine
I made my wish on a satellite dish
but still midnight strikes too soon
Midnight strikes too soon

Cathy never seems to slow down
she's a hurricane working a skyscraper town
she laughs at me, says I'm suburban bound
but the truth is I live on a highway

I come to this city for the solace of her roof
Every window tells a story in cold hard truth
as the world spins beneath me, I ask it for proof
That I'm living my life in my own way
or will time just have its own say

Midnight strikes too soon
Midnight strikes too soon
Midnight strikes too soon
Midnight strikes too soon