Over The Rhine
"Infamous Love Song"

I sing
The bebop apocalypse
Lean into you
God's hands on my hips
Grip the midnight microphone
Steel every cell of my flesh and bone
I wrestle my angel
In smoky stage lights
Climb Jacob's ladder
Two thousand more flights
Tell St. Valentine, Hey gimme five—
Baby our love song must survive

We were born in the dirt
On our hands and knees
But started out climbing
Deciduous trees
We learned to sway
Ridiculously high
Hungry to taste
Mouthfuls of sky
Now I bring all our secrets
To show and tell
How we dragged each other
Through heaven and hell
It's our smoking gun
But hey, we're still alive
Baby our love song must survive

Your third-story windows
On thirteenth and Main
Still glow with an eerie
Mysterious flame
Where we learned to slow dance
By dawn's early light
And tried to be tender
With all of our might
And just down the street
At the Milner Hotel
Rosie's sloppin' the hogs
And the infidels
They all went out of business
When the market took a dive
Baby our love song must survive

There's nights when I mostly
Just feel like a thief
With a prized possession
A gleeful belief
That love's both a joke
And a serious matter
You don't quite know your muse
But you know when you've had her
When I first saw your face yeah
It hurt you to smile
Your lips tasted like tears
I could kiss them for miles
On a midnight train—
May it never arrive
Baby our love song must survive

There's days when we lose
Our appetite
And days when we're bruised
And losing the fight
Of a lifetime, days
When we're looking inside
Wondering if
We're half dead or alive
But the slow honey drip
Of those young nights long gone—
The memory's a friendly whip
Urging us on
My mouth on your lips
Is just trying to revive
Baby our love song must survive

This love's the affirmation
Of everything good
The oxygen coursing
Through the blood
The feel of being understood
The belief that, Oh Yes,
Somehow we could
And the milkyway looks
Like a flimsy blouse
But now we're gentrified
In our civil war house
Safe as a painting
By Currier and Ives
Baby our love song must survive

So I still sing
The bebop apocalypse
Lean into you
God's hands on my hips
Grip the midnight microphone
Steel every cell of my flesh and bone
I still wrestle my angel
In smoky stage lights
Climb Jacob's ladder
Two thousand more flights
C'mon St. Christopher, how 'bout a high five—
Baby our love song must survive