The Horseshoe Wreath in Bloom

Here's the story of the incredible shrinking man
Of fatal disappointment met with a frozen margarita grin
Blinking in time to the hour hand
Funny red nose, Rudolph jokes, memory failing

If you buy lottery tickets you'll win one day
A pile of dead scratchers with the gold and silver all
Scratched away

See him face the manageress he feels her bright disdain
Watches as she yawns all the way through his final scene
She makes it clear my dear in no way does she wish him ill
Says there's no justice there's just this bill

Ten years at the Columbia Hotel
For that there should be a fabulous prize
A lifetime room for a life that slipped away
To hide his asphalt and tarmac eyes

If you buy lottery tickets you'll win one day
A pile of dead scratchers with the gold and silver all
Scratched away
And I'm sure my horseshoe wreath will surely bloom

If I wait in the hotel bar all afternoon
Just wait in the hotel bar every afternoon

Ed McMahon and the models will emerge from the gloom
With big thanks for the life you lead and the joy you made
Give up a wad of paper and all my favorite balloons
I'll make a kick ass speech how you never let the bastards kill your soul
How those who pound sun to dawn you pound of the walls of doom
And fight the vacuum in a world without supermen
How a star must never cast a shadow across the room
I'm a king I know I wrote it on my tomb