Hello All,

Before you read this post, please know that everything the writer knows fits in the limited space between his left ear and his right ear and what he does not know fills the rest of the universe. Thank you for your understanding and patience.

I received a Facebook message this morning asking me to post the lyrics to "The Streets of Manhattan" on this page and I will do so below. This "song of the pandemic" refused to be filed in the "maybe someday" folder where most of my songs live. It demanded to be heard. Thanks to my friend and colleague Lynette Hensley of Seattle, WA (we are both visual artists) you can hear the song on YouTube or on my Facebook page at Jonathan Talbot - Painter & Collage Artist

While this song owes much to "The Streets of Laredo" which in turn evolved from "The Unfortunate Rake" (Roud 2; Laws Q26), I would not call "The Streets of Manhattan" a parody. All the definitions of paradoy that I can find indicate that parody involves humorous intent, something that this song does not. "The Streets of Manhattan" is a result of the same "folk process" which enabled Dylan to write "Masters of War" (written to the melody of "Nottamun Town") or Woody Guthrie to write "The Sinking of the Reuben James" (written to the melody of "Wildwood Flower", a traditional song popularized by the Carter Family). That "The Streets of Laredo" was on my mind when I wrote this song was not a choice. I could not get the images of body bags out of my mind and, going back to my roots, I saw "a young cowboy all wrapped in white linen..."

Here are the Lyrics to "The Streets of Manhattan". If you like the song I hope you will sing it or share the post which you can find at the top of the Facebook page referenced above.

The Streets of Manhattan
(Sing to the tune of “The Streets of Laredo” or the modified melody recorded by Lynette Hensley)

1. One morning while walking the streets of Manhattan,
The season was spring and the weather was fair.
I encountered a woman in a white linen lab coat,
Sweating with fever and gasping for air.

2. “You can see by my outfit that I am a doctor,”
These words she did say with a tear in her eye.
“Please keep your distance but stay here beside me
For I’ve got the virus and I know I will die.”

3. “Please say goodbye to my husband and children,
To my friends and companions, and also my folks.
Tell them that someone - that someone was lying
When he said the virus was only a hoax – yes…”

4. “The President told us we need not be fearful
His advisors stood ‘round him and nodded their heads,
But we ran out of masks for the doctors and nurses,
and we ran out of gowns and we ran out of beds.”

5. “Throughout our country the governors pleaded,
’Please send us supplies, we can’t fight this alone.’”
“The reply from a White House devoid of compassion
was ’I’m not your shipping clerk, you’re on your own.’”

6. “The CDC told us ’reuse your equipment…’”
“They said it was safe, but I didn’t agree.
Still l had to do what I could for each patient,
and the one I could not do the best for was me.”

7. Think of me kindly and comfort my family
And promise you’ll tell them, ‘cause I don’t have long.
That these are the words that I want on my tombstone:
'She did what was right and she knew what was wrong.’”

8. Keeping my distance, I dialed nine-eleven
But before they could get there – she passed away.
And she wasn’t alone, there were more than eight hundred
Who died in Manhattan from the virus that day.

9. One morning while walking the streets of Manhattan,
The season was spring and the weather was fair.
I encountered a woman in a white linen lab coat,
Sweating with fever and gasping for air.

Lyrics © April 19, 2020 by Jonathan Talbot
www.talbot1.com
jonathan@talbot1.com
Phone: 845-258-4620 (East Coast hours please)