Shore Leave Lyrics

  Tom Waits: Chair, vocal
  Stephen Taylor Arvizu Hodges: Drums
  Randy Aldcroft: Trombone
  Victor Feldman: Marimba, bass marimba & shaker, bass drum with rice
  Larry Taylor: Acoustic bass
  Fred Tackett: Banjo, guitar
  Francis Thumm: Metal aunglongs
 
 Well with buck shot eyes and a purple heart
 I rolled down the national stroll
 and with a big fat paycheck
 strapped to my hip sack
 and a shore leave wristwatch underneath
 my sleeve
 in a Hong Kong drizzle on Cuban heels
 I rowed down the gutter to the Blood Bank
 and I'd left all my papers on the Ticonderoga
 and was in a bad need of a shave
 and so I slopped at the corner on cold chow mein
 and shot billards with a midget
 until the rain stopped
 and I bought a long sleeved shirt
 with horses on the front
 and some gum and a lighter and a knife
 and a new deck of cards (with girls on the back)
 and I sat down and wrote a letter to my wife
 
 and I said Baby, I'm so far away from home
 and I miss my Baby so
 I can't make it by myself
 I love you so
 
 Well I was pacing myself
 trying to make it all last
 squeezing all the life
 out of a lousy two day pass
 and I had a cold one at the Dragon
 with some Filipino floor show
 and talked baseball with a lieutenant
 over a Singapore sling
 and I wondered how the same moon outside
 over this Chinatown fair
 could look down on Illinois
 an
and you know I love you Baby
 
 and I'm so far away from home
 and I miss my Baby so
 I can't make it by myself
 I love you so
 
 Shore Leave...
 Shore Leave...