Let me sing you the ballad of Elizabeth Dark
I been workin on it since the time
We hung out at this coffeehouse
In Rogers Park
Like two kids at a five & dime
She would read Dostoevsky
By the yellow moon
That hung like an orange in the tree
While I worked on the words
To the mystery tune
Of Elizabeth Dark & me

This was back in the days
Of the folk music craze
Lenny & poetry & jazz
Cats & chicks snappin their fingers
To Lord Buckley doing The Nazz
Kierkegaard Ginsberg
Sartre & free love
Parties to cover the rent
We all wanted to be existentialists
None of us knew what the hell it meant

Now I take the El to Loyola
And I walk along the Sheridan sand
Where the waves are breakin over the jetty
Where the wind is like an icy hand
Fyodor says that the criminal
Always returns to the scene of the crime
Maybe I'll see Elizabeth D one more time.

Her hair was long and flowin
A river of zen down her back
We had spaghetti with Ferlinghetti
And wine with Jack Kerouac
Things were real cool
One day I came home from school
And Elizabeth Dark wasn't there
No river of raven zen hair
No Dark at the top of the stairs

Now I take the El to Loyola...

Sometimes I get out my old bongos
Reminisce about makin the scene
Read my tarot
Tell my fortune from grounds
In a beat up espresso machine
I'm a beatnik lost in the future
Like a Model T Ford out in space
Still as in love with Elizabeth Dark
As the first time I saw her face

Now I take the El to Loyola...

Recorded on: Michael Margaret Pat & Kate, Time, Such Things are Finely Done