Tom Waits Lyrics

Album: Closing Time

Ice Cream Man Lyrics

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 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 and likes to mingle

Got to be patient, try and pick up a clue


She said How you gonna like 'em, over medium or scrambled?,

You say 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

And 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 her cared

So they took the registration, and the 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, 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,

And I'll accept your invitation to the blues