BALLAD OF ELIZABETH DARK
by Michael Smith

Let me sing you the ballad of Elizabeth Dark. I've been workin' on it since the time
We hung out at this coffeehouse in Rogers Park like two kids at a Five and Dime.
She would read Dostoyevsky by the yellow moon that hung like an orange in the trees
While I worked on the tune to the mystery tune of Elizabeth Dark and me.

This was back in the days of the folk music craze—Lenny and poetry and jazz,
Cats and chicks snappin' their fingers to Lord Buckley doin' "THE NAZZ",
Kierkegaard, Ginsberg, Sartre and free love—parties to cover the rent,
We all wanted to be existentialists. None of us knew what the hell it meant.

(Refrain)
Now I take the "El" to Loyola and I walk along the Sheridan sand,
Where the waves are breakin' over the jetty and the wind is like an icy hand.
Theodore says that the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.
Maybe I'll see Elizabeth D. one more time.

Her hair was long and flowing—a river of Zen down her back.
We had spaghetti with Ferlinghetti and wine with Jack Kerouac.
Things were real cool. One day I came home from school and Elizabeth Dark wasn't there,
No river of ravens and hair—no Dark at the top of the stairs.

(Refrain) Now I take the "El" to Loyola and I walk along the Sheridan sand,
Where the waves are breaking over the jetty, where the wind is like an icy hand.
Theodore says that the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.
Maybe I'll see Elizabeth D. one more time.

Sometimes I take out my old bongos, reminisce about makin' the scene,
Read my Tarot tellin' fortunes from grounds from a beat-up espresso machine.
I'm a beatnik lost in the future like a model-T Ford out in space,
Still as in love with Elizabeth Dark as the first time I saw her face.

Now I take the "El" to Loyola and I walk along the Sheridan sand,
Where the waves are breakin' over the jetty, where the wind is like an icy hand,
Theodore says that the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime,
Maybe I'll see Elizabeth D. one more time.
_________________________________________________________

Rogers Park = a very far Northside neighborhood of Chicago. Actually the last part of Chicago before the first suburb along the Lake Michigan shore--Evanston.

The "El" = the elevated CTA train--Chicago Transit Authority)

Lenny = Lenny Bruce

Lord Buckley was a stand-up monologist and humorist--one of the hippest around---a white rapper you might say. One of his most famous hip discourses was "THE NAZZ"--about Jesus (of NAZZareth) and all those "hip cats and kitties." The rest of the names there are philosophers except Allen Ginsberg--the author of the beat poem "HOWL" and many more.

Loyola = Loyola University. Right on the lake at Devon Avenue, during the tremendous winter storms, there are monumental ice formations ---sheets and icicles and gargoyles made of crystalline fantasy concretions. Some day you'll have to see the photos I took there. One is an entire drunken septet sculpted in ice--all completely natural---6 "people" with their arms around each other harmonizing. At least that's what it has always looked like to me.

Ferlinghetti = a beat poet of that unique and inspiring (for me) era.

Jack Kerouac = the best known writer to come out of the BEAT GENERATION. Author of _Mexico City Blues_, __The Dharma Bums__, __Desolation Angels__, __Big Sur__, __On The Road__ and many others.

"Sheridan sand" refers to Sheridan Road---the N.S. street that runs North along the lake.

I don't know who Theodore is/was!

I do know who Elizabeth Dark was--for me anyhow...

Art Thieme