Take This Waltz

Now in Vienna There’s ten pretty women

There’s a shoulder Where Death comes to cry

There’s a lobby With nine hundred windows

There’s this tree Where the doves go to die

There’s a piece Torn from the morning

And it hangs In the gallery of frost

Ay, ay, ay, ay

Take this waltz Take this waltz

Take this waltz With the clamp on its jaws

I want you, I want you I want you

On a chair With a dead magazine

In that cave At the tip of a lily

In some hallway Where love’s never been

On a bed where the moon Has been sweating

In a cry filled With footsteps and sand

Ay, ay, ay, ay

Take this waltz Take this waltz

Take its broken waist In your hand

This waltz, this waltz, This waltz, this waltz

With its very own breath Of brandy and death

Dragging its tail In the sea

There’s a concert hall In Vienna

Where your mouth had A thousand reviews

There’s this bar

Where the boys Have stopped talking

They’ve been sentenced To death by the blues

Ah, but who is it climbed To your picture

With a garland Of freshly cut tears

Ay, ay, ay, ay

Take this waltz Take this waltz

Take this waltz It’s been dying for years

There’s an attic Where children are playing

Where I’ve got to lie down With you soon

In a dream Of Hungarian lanterns

In the mist Of some sweet afternoon

And I’ll see what You’ve chained to your sorrow

All your sheep And your lilies of snow

Ay, ay, ay, ay

Take this waltz Take this waltz

With its “I’ll never Forget you, you know!”

This waltz, this waltz, This waltz, this waltz

With it’s very own breath Of brandy and death

Dragging its tail In the sea

And I’ll dance with you In Vienna

I’ll be wearing A river’s disguise

The hyacinth wild On my shoulder

My mouth on the dew Of your thighs

And I’ll bury my soul In a scrapbook

With the photographs there And the moss

And I’ll yield to the flood Of your beauty

My cheap violin and my cross

And you’ll carry me down On your dancing

To the pools that you lift On your wrist

Oh my love, oh my love

Take this waltz Take this waltz

Take this waltz It’s all that there is

Your sweet shepherd of strings.

On the laud, Javier Mas.

Ay, ay, ay, ay

The master of breath on instrument of wind,

Dino Soldo.

The signature of steady on the pedal steel

and the electric guitar, Bob Metzger.

The prince of precision,

our time keeper on the drums,

Rafael Bernardo Gayol.

Ay, ay, ay, ay

On the Hammond B-3 and the keyboards,

the impeccable Neil Larsen.

My collaborator, the incomparable Sharon Robertson.

Hattie and Charley Webb,

the sublime Webb sisters.

Our guardian and sentry,

our musical director on the upright and the electric bass,

Roscoe Beck.

Thank you so much, dear friends.

Thank you for this memorable evening.