"Ninth Avenue Reverie" lyrics

You say you want to be buried beneath a mango tree
Where if in the northern summer you come back to life
You say you want your ashes mixed up with your lover’s salt
Where every Sunday night he’ll eat a little more of you

You say you can’t stop crying, it’s just the power of the song
Riding on the midnight bus again
And you say that you loved him but you were just too young
You say that’s why you still wait in the rain

You say a lot of things

And you say that your daddy was a painter of sorts
But I never saw him paint a thing
He just kept the tins underneath his bed
And sniffed a different colour every night
And dreamed of a place up in the sky
Where everyone’s a painter till they die

You say you don’t like flying on aeroplanes
That even seabirds must get lonely out there
You said you were quitting after your next pack
And you said once that I was beautiful
But for all the pretty ladies in Beijing
I couldn’t stop my drinking

And you say a lot of
You say a lot of
You say a lot of things

You say you can’t stop dreaming about your funeral day
Where all your long-time friends will be crying for you
And I’d be up the back with a rose in my hand
And I’d give to you in death what I could not in life