Lyrics Steve Earle

Steve Earle

Down Here Below

Pale male the famous redtail hawk performs wingstands

high above midtown Manhattan

Circles around for one last pass over the park

Got his eye on a fat squirrel down there and a couple

of pigeons

They got no place to run they got no place to hide

But pale male he's cool, see 'cause his breakfast ain't

goin' nowhere

So he does a loop t loop for the tourists and the six

o'clock news

Got him a penthouse view from the tip-top of the food

chain, boys

He looks up and down on Fifth Ave and says "God I love

this town"

But life goes on down here below

And all us mortals struggle so

We laugh and cry

And live and die

That's how it goes

For all we know

Down here below

I saw Joe Mitchell's ghost on a downtown 'A' train

He just rides on forever now that the Fulton fish

market's shut down

He said 'they ain't never gonna get that smell out of

the water

I don't give a damn how much of that new money they

burn'

Now hell's kitchen's Clinton and the Bowery's Nolita

And the East Village's creepin' 'cross the Williamsburg

Bridge

And hey, whatever happened to alphabet city?

Ain't no place left in this town that a poor boy can go

But life goes on down here below

And all us mortals struggle so

We laugh and cry

And live and die

That's how it goes

For all we know

Down here below

Pale male swimmin' in the air

Looks like he's in heaven up there

People sufferin' everywhere

But he don't care

But life goes on down here below

And all us mortals struggle so

We laugh and cry