Run Joe Run

Well I heard your name on a jukebox cry,

Every night another long-distance sigh,

Pages and pages in a fevered rhyme,

Love gone strange in 4/4 time.

She said “Joseph darling, why don’t you call?”

Then “Joseph baby, do you love me at all?”

Then a record spun and the needle begun—

Sounded less like love, more a smoking gun.

Run Joe run, put your shoes on son

There’s a red moon risin’ and the night ain’t done

Call a friend, climb a fence, catch the first train out

When devotion starts hissin’, that’s what danger’s about

Run Joe run, don’t walk—run!

Now she sings you poisoned yourself somehow

Says “take what the doctor says right now”

But I seen crime shows late at night

And brother that tune don’t sound quite right.

Chicken soup and roses by a sickbed door,

Then a jealous ballad and a slammed screen door

When the love songs turn into evidence, man

You don’t stay around to understand.

Run Joe run, put your shoes on son

Weak or weary, crawl if you gotta, run

Ring a buddy up, send a coded note

Don’t wait around with your hand on your throat

Run Joe run, don’t walk—run!

Well a midnight knock came soft on the pane

Joe heard his name in the pouring rain

Sweet voice whisperin’, “Honey let me in…”

Brother that’s where the trouble begins.

Perfume drifting and a shadow crossed

Joe checked his pulse and nearly got lost

Saw a note on the floor say we’re meant to be

That’s when he climbed out the mango tree.

Run Joe run, hear the hound dogs howl

Love gone crooked wears a velvet growl

Don’t read the letter, don’t answer the plea

If fate taps twice, climb the nearest tree

Run Joe run, don’t walk—run!

Well now Joe…

If she says “we belong together forever…”

That may be your cue, son.

Back door. Window. Fire escape. Move.

Cadillac rattlin’ down a county line

Joe in the back with a borrowed dime

Calling old friends from a roadside phone

Sayin’ “Boys come get me, I can’t go home.”

And somewhere a record skips in the dark

With a lipstick kiss and a question mark…

Run Joe run, let the engine hum

There’s a whole lotta trouble where that came from

Love ain’t chains and it ain’t surveillance

Sometimes survival looks a lot like silence

Run Joe run—go cat, go!

Run Joe… run…