DEGREE-OF-FREEDOM BLUES

What makes the mist
boil off the street?
What makes big molecules
soak up more heat?
Just that they can do it --
they don't have to choose.
They've got those everloving
degree-of-freedom blues.

Why isn't the sky
solid white with stars?
Why don't you see much
from Jupiter to Mars?
There's lots of space for losing
what you have to lose.
Just don't let it give you those
degree-of-freedom blues.

Energy is everything --
so some people say,
but entropy has got the keys
and trucks it all away.
Everything is plenty --
more than we can use,
but most of it is down with those
degree-of-freedom blues.

We may get TV signals
from deep in outer space,
and funny, long-dead faces
may stare us in the face.
If they look a little green,
that won't be news.
That's just your dopplered-down
degree-of-freedom blues.

There are more words
than you can ever say,
more stars and people
than ever come your way.
You ignore the billions
to learn the ones and twos.
Open up your ears to those
degree-of-freedom blues.

Once love was stuck in cylinders
and pulled creation's train,
but now, if you believe it,
it's falling with the rain.
Love is free to cover
whatever may amuse.
I think I hear love drumming those
degree-of-freedom blues.

Ropes knot and snarl
if you just let them be.
No river runs
straight down to the sea.
Crooked ways are billions;
straight ways, ones and twos.
All the worms are singing those
degree-of-freedom blues.

We send our whores
banging thru the sky;
we keep on building bombs
as if we'd like to die --
just cause we can do it
(costs too much to choose).
That's what's got me singing those
degree-of-freedom blues.

You can run a rocky road
balancing a pole,
but you can't run with water
and keep it in the bowl.
What you've got to run with
has still more ways to lose,
and what you've got to live with is
degree-of-freedom blues.

                               1978