Nearest Thing to Hip

There used to be a café a few blocks away Open seven days, called The Brilliant Mistake Where a crow-haired girl with scarlet lips And slender hips served up coffee and cake On a crackling stereo the ghosts of Sun Ra Charlie Parker, Miles and Coltrane blew I'd kick back in my chair, that sweet honey'd jazz In the air, the sun shining through It was the nearest thing to hip It was the nearest thing to hip In this shithole and it's gone It was the nearest thing to hip It was the nearest thing to hip In this shithole and it's gone Everywhere that I go I see streets that are low On distinction and high on the banal and the bland How did we get to this? We plumbed the abyss By the twisted grace of the law of supply and demand Well, there's no use crying and no use sighing over Stone, wood, wire, glass and cement But there's a little record store with a wooden floor That ain't there no more that I used to frequent It was the nearest thing to hip In was the nearest thing to hip In this shithole and it's gone It was the nearest thing to hip It was the nearest thing to hip In this shithole and it's gone Now I need to get out of this hullabaloo And I remember an old-fashioned bar that I once knew With an old-fashioned barman wearing old-fashioned clothes But when I get there it's been bulldozed So I follow my nose down Comatose Lane Through the stripped back, ripped up wastes Of Woebegone Square Till I find myself on Deadbeat Street Feet beginning to ache, despair in the air The only thing bright in this blighted town Are the billboard adverts everywhere displayed Like mocking shades And the musty, dusty second-hand book shop Is now a scum-encrusted amusement arcade It was the nearest thing to hip It was the nearest thing to hip In this shithole and it's gone It was the nearest thing to hip It was the nearest thing to hip In this shithole and it's gone And it's gone