Charles Mingus — Colloquial Dreams Scenes in the City

Well here I am Right back where I was yesterday The day before And the day before that Sitting on a high bar stool Holding my dreams up to the sound of jazz music I live uptown. Where I don’t exactly know, but I’m always down town And it seems I’m always with the blues I talk to myself in public places and hum jazz tunes I love jazz But soon I have to make it up town to that old furnished room of mine I guess that’s why I stall so long down town But I like the cafe bars down here Especially the ones across the streets from theaters I once wanted to be on the stage But this is the closest I’ll ever get to one I couldn’t afford a seat next to the ceiling That was jazz music you heard blasting out Now I’ve got 15 cents between me and starvation And I’d probably have to walk all the way up town Cause I’m playing that music again You see, I love jazz music Doo doo doo doo doo doo ... Instrumental That’s pretty music, boy Pretty but it ain’t really pretty It ain’t like girls in magazines It’s beautiful It’s terribly beautiful, man Say like a woman you might've been with last night Or say an hour ago Instrumental Sad huh Sorta reminds of that old building I live in My room, looking out over Harlem and [?] Now, now catch this Dig! Instrumental Now here I am standing at the window in my old building It’s nighttime in Harlem I sure wish I could just relax and be cool But it’s just like my mother said Don’t cause nothing to wish, Jack Now here comes old Bob with a mouthfull of jive I know he's coming right here Yeah I hear you talkin' Jim No company tonight man, no, my record machine is in the pawn shop Man, stop talkin' so loud before you wake my landlady up and she remembers I haven't paid my rent in three weeks Aw man, who cares? Go, man, go Let me be cool Open that door! Please let me be cool man I know you're in there! Why don't you please stop that noise? Open the door! I want that ring! Would you please stop all of that confusion? Please just let me be! Please get away from my door! Would you please go? Please, be quiet I just want to be cool man Man, you oughta see this old room of mine Every morning I wake up and look around me And I keep thinking, I must have died a hundred years during the night And I wonder about that, Jack, yes I wonder, like how I ever got here Because I don't have any plans of dying that fast I guess I'm the only man in the world who wakes up to jazz music in the morning But I guess, I can't say exactly why but, I kinda find it solemn like a hymn You know I had a two bedroom with my mother when I was back home and I woke up in the morning time digging sounds My moms did dig, she just didn't go for it Bird, Miles and Max, she couldn't see it Morning, afternoon, night or evening time That is until I played her some Monk one night, late Round about midnight time I played her some Monk. Thelonius, that is And now Moms spends many of her nights in Tunisia Instrumental Yeah, early in the mornin’ time Late in the night time I’m with the blues Sometimes I’m laughing and having myself a ball And that’s why Bob keeps telling me that the blues ain’t all up there in that old room Like sometimes it’s dancing and struts like a woman Skips and hops like children playing ball And maybe that’s why I always manage to change once in a while Even with the blues Whether I like it or not, I love the idea of living, man And sometimes it’s tough, man And I don’t mean tough like when Miles is grooving with his horn I mean tough like when I can’t make that morning meal When I’m ducking the landlady, when everything I have is in hot Like when I think, when I think about all the places I haven’t been and won’t ever like to get there But I think maybe I will, yes that’s the way I think Like the song says, the sun gonna shine in my back door someday All the way down to the bottom of my stomach and up again, that’s the way I feel Doo doo doo doo doo doo ... Instrumental Pretty, man But not pretty Beautiful like a woman A real woman