Birmingham
   Just behind the mountain
   Sparse streelamps glow in hot half-moon haze
   Shadows shorten into little black pools that elongate behind
   We walk, talk some, laugh some
   Worked hard, now wired, and hanging out
   I'm curious what you might be all about
   Curious, too, what that dark-shape in the hard shining cruiser might do
   And you have no idea what you're getting
   out of of your own curiosity and tense energy
   Tattoo on chest like the key to the puzzle of your pumping heart
   Wearing your shadows all over your sleeve
   Wearing the role of young upstart
  
   Chorus:
   Birmingham shadows fall
   You show a little, I let something show too
   It's now or not at all
   Out on the road, it's always instant get-to-know-you
  
   Under velvet trees, towering like the sides of a well
   Before the empty two office blocks
   Which we're admonished not to enter
   Policeman studies us, finds us confusing
   More amusing than threat
   Moves on, bemused
   Pavement spirals down ahead like the fossil of a giant shell
   Along the kingdom's midnight marches
   I wear my shadows where they're harder to see
   But they follow me everywhere
   I guess that should tell me that I'm travelling toward light
   I guess something you sang made me remember that
   I guess I'm saying thanks for that
  
   Chorus:
   Birmingham shadows fall
   You show a little, I let something show too
   It's now or not at all
   Out on the road, it's always instant get-to-know-you
  
   (Instrumental Break)
  
   Got a head full of horrors and a heart full of night
   At home in the darkness, but hungry for dawn
   I only remember scenes, never the stories I live
   The good things about that is, it's easy to forgive
   Can't make assumptions about any of this
   We're nomads following our own songlines
   Who knows what could strike before we meet again?
   But if I fall down and die
   Without saying goodbye
   I give you this: you'll have lost a friend
  
   Chorus:
   Birmingham shadows fall
   You show a little, I let something show too
   It's now or not at all
   Out on the road, it's always instant get-to-know-you