Set the Twilight Reeling

Written and produced by Lou Reed.

Published by Lou Reed Music BMI

Egg Cream ; NYC Man ; Finish Line ; Trade In ; Hang On To Your Emotion ; Sex With Your Parents ( Motherfucker ) ; Hooky Wooky ;The Proposition ; Adventurer ; Riptide ; Set The Twilight Reeling

Egg Cream

When I was a young man - no bigger than this

A chocolate egg cream was not to be missed

Some U Bet's Chocolate Syrup, seltzer water mixed with milk

Stir it up into a heady fro - tasted just like silk

Now you can go to Junior's, Dave's on Canal St.

And I think there's Ken's in Boston

There must be something in L.A.

But Becky's on Kings Highway

Was the Egg Cream of choice

And if you don't believe me

Go ask any of the boys

The only good thing I remember about P.S.92

Was the Egg Cream served at Becky's

It was a fearsome brew

For fifty cents you got a shot - chocolate bubbles up your nose

That made it easier to deal with knife flights

and kids pissing in the street

So the next time you're in Brooklyn - Please say hello for me

At Totonno's for Pizza and ice cream at Al and Shirley's

But mostly you go to Becky's - sit in a booth and say hello

And have two chocolate Egg Cream - one to stay and go

You scream, I steam, We all want Egg Cream

NYC Man

It can only lead to trouble if you break my heart

If you accidently crush it on the ides of March

I'd prefer you were straight forward

You don't have to go through all of that

I'm a New York city man, baby

Say "go" and that is that

It's far too complicated to make up a lie

That you'd have to remember and really why

I would't want to be around you

If you don't want to have me around

I'm a M-A-N-N man

Slink your eyes and I'll gone

Brutus made a pretty speech but Caesar was betrayed

Lady Macbeth went crazy but Macbeth ended slain

Ophelia and Desdamona dead leaving Hamlet in a play

But I'm no lear with blinded eyes

Say " go " and I am gone

The stars have shut their eyes up tight

The earth has changed it's course

A Kingdom sits on a black knight's back

As he tries to mount a white jeweled horse

While a clock full of butterflies on the hour

Releases a thousand moths

You say " leave" and I'll be gone

Without any remorse

No letters faxes phones or tears

There's a difference between

Bad and worse

New York city I love you

Blink your eyes and I'll be gone

Just a little grain of sand

Finish Line

Wind blows snow outside my windows

Crowd below runs wild in the streets

Two rented brothers race down two separate alleys

Heading for the finish line

Down in the train yard out by the stockyard

Butchers with aprons hack meat in the snow

Blood has the brothers pulsing with envy

Heading for the finish line

Two rented brothers. Their faces keep changing

Just like these feelings I have for you

And nothing's forever not even five minutes

When you're headed for the finish line

Down in the depot out by the meat rack

Down by the tunnels surrounding the jail

Prisoners are marching in squares and in circles

They're heading for the finish line

They're lining up for Noah's Ark

They're stabbing each other in the dark

Saluting a flag made of some rich guy's socks

Heading for the finish line

Close to the line the ice is cracking

Two rented feelings sitting in the stands

Two mothers, two fathers and both of them are paid for

All of a sudden it comes back to me

Just up ahead is the finish line

Two rented referees and two checkered rags

One of the corner of my eye comes a

Dark horse with black wings

Headed for the finish line

I'm five years old the room is fuzzy

I think there's also a very young girl

It's hard to remember what happened exactly

As I'm staring at the finish line

First came fire then came light

Then came feeling then cane sight

Trade In

I met a new me at 8 am

The other one got lost

This was not a trade in

Although I would't believe the cost

I woke up crying as we said goodbye

Me an my old self

Each day he vanished more and more

As I became someone else

He actually was murdered I had taken him apart

But when I put him back together

I couldn't find his heart

It was resting underneath a chair

In a bed of bright tin foil

If I pulled back the flaps

I could still see it beat

I could still hear his voice uncoil

As I said :

I want a trade in

A 14th chance at this life

I've met a woman with a thousand faces

And I want to make her my wife

How could I have been so mistaken

How could I think that it was true

A child that is raised by an idiot

And that idiot then becomes you

How could I believe in a movie

How could I believe in a book

But most of all how could I listen to you

Such an obvious schmuck

A life spent listening to assholes

It's funny but it's true

So get rid of them I said to myself

But first I'm getting rid of you

Take me over to the window

My heart said to my head

Please set me on fine

So we can start again

I was so wrong that it's funny

And I can't apologize/ but instead,

You can be everything that I'm not

The second that I die

Hang On To Your Emotions

When your imagination has too much to say

When the chill of the night meets the sweat of the day

And you have trouble understanding what other people have to say

You'd better hang on to your emotions

When a demagogue inside your head has taken charge

And by default what you say or do is criticized

And this litany of failures is recited a thousand times

You's better hang on to your emotions

Could it be you've never felt like that

That your mind's a cage -- inside the cage a cat

That spits and scratches all it can get at

And that's you

And your emotions

Could it be you've never felt like that

Your mind's a cage -- inside the cage a rat

Rabidly trying to get it

You and your emotions

When your imagination has too much to say

When that facile voice inside your head says give your life away

You might think to ask -- how it got that way

What books it has read -- that make it that way

And where it got the right -- to speak to anyone that way

You'd better hold on to your emotions

Hold on to your emotions

When a night city's breeze blows across the room

And a 5 am moon and sun start their swoon

You hear your lover's breath

And not a moment too soon

You get to release all your emotions

Sex With Your Mother ( Motherfucker )

I was thinking of things that I hate to do

Things you do to me or I do to you

Something fatter or uglier than rush rambo

Something more disgusting than robert dole

Something pink that climbs out of a hole

And there it was -- sex with your mother

I was getting so sick of this right wing republican shit

These ugly old man scared of young tit and dick

So I try to think of something that made me sick

And there it was -- sex with your mother

Now these old fucks can steal all they want

And they can go and pass laws saying you can't say what you want

And you can't look at this and you can't look at that

And you can't smoke this and you can't snort that

And me baby - I got statistics - I got stats

These people have been to bed with their parents

Now I know you're shocked but hang and have a brew

If you think about it for a minute you know that it's true

They're ashamed and repelled and they don't know what to do

They've had sex with their parents

When they looked into their lovers eyes they saw --- mom

In the name of the family values we must ask whose family

In the name of the family values we must ask

Senator. it's has been reported that you have had

Illegal congress with your mother

Senator an illegal congress by proxy is a

Pigeon by any other name

Senators you polish a turd

Here in the big city we got a word

For those who would bed their beloved big bird

And make a mockery of our freedoms

Without even using a condom

Without even saying " no "

By god we have a name for people like that

It's -- hey motherfucker

Hooky Wooky

I'm standing with you on your roof

Looking at the chemical sky

All purple blue and oranges, some pigeons flying by

The traffic on canal street so noisy it's a shock

And someone's shooting fireworks

Or a gun on the next block

Traffic's so noisy it's a shock

Sounds like fireworks or a gun on the next block

I want to hookywooky with you

Your ex-lover Satchel is here from France

Yet another ex

They gather about you like a mother superiot

All of you still friends

None of my old flames ever talk to me

When things end for me they end

They take your pants your money your name

But the song still remains

You're so civilized it hurts

I guess I could learn a lot

About people plants and relationships

And how not to get hurt a lot

And each lover I meet up your roof

I wouldn't want to throw them off

Into the chemical sky

Down into the streets to die

Under the wheels of a car on Canal Streets

And each lover I meet up on your roof

Into the chemical sky

Under the wheels of a car to die on Canal streets

The Proposition

You can't have the flower without the root

You can't have the fire without the soot

Even a stripper needs her red tasseled suit

And we were meant to be

In every war the north needs the south

And everyone knows all assholes have a mouth

Without mystery what would writers talk about

And we were meant to be

An apple needs pits the way melons need seed

Your foot needs your arm and your arm needs your knee

And one of these days I know you will need me

We were meant to be

You're mother's an ogre your father's a scamp

You won't see my parents honored on any stamp

But just like a bulb screws into a lamp

We were meant to be

The way the AIDS needs a vaccine

Somewhere a vaccine needs AIDS

The way a victim needs life

A life needs to be saved

And out of all of this

Will come a better way

We were meant to be

So you can go to Europe , Los Angeles or Mars

You can stand on a building throwing cinderblocks on cars

You can practise deep voodoo

But like me you'll see

We were meant to be

Adventurer

You're an adventurer / you sail across the ocean / you climb the Himalayas

Seeking truth and beauty as a natural state

You're a queen reborn / worshipped from above afar / some see you as an elixir

An elemental natural seeking perfect grace

In a catacomb / or cave of endless drawings / prehistoric or religious

Your accomplishments prodigious / seeking out the perfect tone

Your language so clear / your voice perfectly turning / as in the city I sit yearing / blowing rings of smoke from thin cigars / or driving fast in foreign cars / to capture your remains

You're an adventurer / a turban wet wrapped round your head / on the mountainside they predict your death / oh how you fooled them all

But subjects are a poor excuse / when what you really want's a muse / an inspirating knowledge of what comes before

Speeds of light / the momentery flicker of a candle in its wicker basket / smoking wax

Facts / did you find that superior knowledge that eluded you in college /

Did you find that super vortex that could cause your cerebral cortex to lose its grip

You're an adventurer / you were out looking for meaning / while the rest of us were steaming in an inspirating urban pit

An adventurer / you enter as i'm dreaming / I wish I'd never wake up / differentiating scheming from my one true love

You're an adventurer / you love the angles and the cherries / the height and width of levies / the natural bridge and tunnels of the human race

You're an adventurer / nothing seem to scare you and if it does it won't dissuade you

You just will not think about it / you dismiss it and defocus / you redefine the locus of your time in space-race

As you move further from me and though I understand the thinking / and have often done the sane thing I find parts of me gone

You're adventurer / and though I'll surely miss you / and of course I'll survive without you and maybe good will come of that

But at this point I anticipate some grieving and although I know your leaving

Is a necessary adjunct to what we both do

An adventurer / splitting up the atom / splitting up the once was / splitting up the essance / of our star-crossed fate

None who meet you do forget you / my adventurer / my adventuress

Riptide

She's out of her mind / like the wind in the storm

Like the ocean in the dawn as it disappears, with the ripride

She's out of her mind / she's pulled away by the moon

She's ripped from her sleep ... As the cold luna sweep gains control

What you gonna do ... With your emotions

Ones you barely recognize

In your sleep I heard your screaming

"This is not voluntary! This is not voluntary !

If this is life I'd rather die !"

In the riptide

She's out of her mind riptide

Like a muscle that swells

You know when you trip

Whether you're well or sick

Your body aches

She's out with the tide

Gone to a prisoner's dance

Where a monkey's her date

Eating limbs off a plate with a spoon

What you gonna do with your emotions

Said the seagull to the loon

What you gonna do with your emotions

She said " Please wake me up"

She said " Don't touch me now"

She said " I wish I was dead"

In the riptide

She's out of her mind riptide ... You always win

It happens over and over again rip tide

She's out of her mind like a hurricane's rain

She does not stand a chance at this luna dance riptide

I was thinking of Van Gogh's last painting

The wheatfields and the crows

Is that perhaps what you've been feeling

When you see the ground

As you fall from the shy

As the floors disappears

From beneath your feet riptide

She's going out of her mind

With the riptide

Set The Twilight Reeling

Take me for what I am ... A star newly emerging

Long simmering explodes ... Inside the self is reeling

In the pocket of the heart ... In the rushing of the blood

In the muscle of my sex ... In the mindfull mindless love

I accept the new found man and set the twilight reeling

At 5 am the moon and the sun ... Sit set before my window

Light glances off the blue glass we set ... Right before the window

And you who accept ... In your soul and your head

What was misunderstood ... What was thought of with dread

A new self is born ... The other self dead

I accept the new found man and set the twilight reeling

A soul singer stands on the stage ... The spotlight shows him sweating

He sinks to one knee ... Seems to cry ... The horn are unrelenting

But as the drums beats he finds himself growing hard

In the microphone's face he sees her face growing large

And the swelling crescendo no longer retards

I accept the new found man and set the twilight reeling

As the twilight sunburst gleams

As the chromium moon it sets

As I lose all my regrets and set the twilight reeling

I accept the new found man and set the twilight reeling

[ Back to NYC Man ]