The Spy and the Clown

She descended from a far away land I was from the backwoods She was my life and death I was her lover boy They taught me simple things Beware of seductive pretty strangers How to drive a car very fast and true How to meander as a tourist in blue To drop a note inside empty walls To see my reflection in windows tall To pick up this and that from here and there Cross a border or two, if I dare She moved into my dreams They knew I was compromised I knew not a thing at all So I played the spy and the clown East German prisons and needles Russian doctors and dreams Tomorrow sometimes never comes Lucky me to be so old and dumb In the basement of a side street A Paris jazz saloon I sat alone As it dawned capon me I have no one, I am the clown The spy that never was Photographs dancing in my mind Lovers dancing arm in arm along the Rhine Helsinki rendezvous Swedish diplomatic moves Vodka for both, a drunk white rose The Russian red room was to be my tomb I lost my lover Pistol whipped and left for dead Never be the spy and the clown My only desire to touch the sea of Oland Hope the hell I drown Rainy days and clowns Those days of cat and mouse Left me alone in the old spies house Hanging around Saved the world Lost my love Time for me to cut my throat Spies end up playing solitaire Clowns end up alone Fools drown inside vodka dreams Lena still lives in my heart, weeping