Pretty Girl from Oregon Hill

I told myself that no one has the answers

It was just a way of lying to myself

So when a pretty girl from Oregon Hill

Said come and stay with me well I obliged

We had so many cats it was like a shelter

I brought my things from California

I brought a friend to help me make a record

But he fled back home when the winter it arrived

And the pretty girl

She came from Oregon Hill

She by me and for this

I owe her my life

And the pretty girl

She came from Oregon Hill

She waited tables all through the winter

In wooden house we called big dirty yellow

The only heat it came from kerosene

In the middle of the night

We’d walk down to the old part of town

They called Gunsmoke to buy more kerosene

And the streets they were lined with ancient buildings

Porticos straight from the gilded age

Opulent poverty broken down and half abandoned

You could almost see the ghosts

In the window frames

And the pretty girl

She came from Oregon Hill

We danced in the ruins of

The planter’s mansions

And the pretty girl

She came from Oregon Hill

The boxwoods they shone

Silver in the moonlight

Went to visit your mother in Annapolis

She lived in house that was older than the United States

You father works at The White House now

So baby why you keeping me around

Sweet that you’re down here slumming it with me

Sweet that you’re down here slumming it with me.