The Altar Boy And The Thief

Joan Baez

At night in the safety of shadows and numbers Seeking some turf on which nothing encumbers The buying and selling of casual looks Stuff that gets printed in x-rated books Your mother might have tried to understand When you were hardly your daddy's little man And you gave up saluting the chief To find yourself some relief Finely plucked eyebrows and skin of satin Smiling seductive and endlessly Latin Olympic body on dancing feet Perfume thickening the air like heat A transient star of gay bar fame You quit your job and changed your name And you're nearly beyond belief As you hunt down a little relief The seven foot black with the emerald ring Broke up a fight without saying a thing As the cops cruised by wanting one more chance To send Jimmy Baldwin back over to France And a trucker with kids and a wife Prefers to spend half of his life In early Bohemian motif Playing pool and getting relief My favorite couple was looking so fine Dancing in rhythm and laughing in rhyme In the light of the jukebox all yellow and blue Holding each other as young lovers do To me they will always remain Unshamed, untamed, and unblamed The altar boy and the thief Grabbing themselves some relief The altar boy and the thief Catching a little relief