[Intro] In the district called the Barbary Coast Nickelodeon showed scandalous moving pictures The coast was described by one indignant critic As "that sink of moral pollution, whose reefs Are strewn with human wrecks Here, blear-eyed men drink vile liquor Smoke offensive tobacco and engage In vulgar conduct. Here are: Debauchery, disease, insanity, blasphemy, death And hell, yawning to receive its putrid mass."
(The ground shook, and the sky burned...)
[Verse 1: Aesop Rock] These are the unregulated rabbit holes Barrack homes and taverns built for devil's acre Opium enthusiasts and baritones, marigold The garish allure of the burning Barbary Underbelly born of 40 thieves in whorish harmony Hammering for the dark and heartless Harpy, shark and harlot argue breathing room Do not let the arson jeeper-creeper you If we elect the scenic route see it as greener grasses Like morphine after snatch help you forget diseases matter Not to mention 15 cents for either weakens cheaper gamblers Down for hell inside a melting pot No one's ever melting they just yell a lot Stab each other, drink and eat and belly-flop Murder Point, your thoroughfare at 12 o'clock Is hell and back, EMB to Chinatown Kearny clashing cutters out the netherworld Sydney ducks to pistol fuck the centerfold Every cellar iniquity, pretty killers and pistol petes Might wake up to horses tearing at your limbs symmetrically
[Hook] x2 Tomorrow morning when the wharf is finished warping You will wash up on the shore and wonder what was so alluring (El-P) Tomorrow evening when the leeches finish feeding You'll regret the ownership of an aorta that is bleeding
[Interlude] Back in those days The volunteer firefighters Competed with each other To be the first To reach the fire
[Verse 2: Aesop Rock] Before a later bay was calm, disreputable hangers on Would rumble for the hungry like Montgomery's little Genghis Khans Who plain as day would operate in holes where no patrollers go Groggeries that host the most ignoble dog and pony show Francis of Assisi in his grave alone to roller-coast His opus now a cove where all the lowest lows can grow and grow With no sign of a holy ghost More the polar: horns and rosy cloven toes Bunny-hop claims, fold and overthrow Gangland anchors hit the harbor down for hangman Shuffle fifty two and slip the chew behind the fang-span Greenhorn, he just wanna help his hammers harmonize Stowed in hell's cargo by the spark in those Wells Fargo eyes And famine wasn't featured in the pamphlet, neither were the cancers Camp was smoking chimney, mantle, taxidermy antlers Now the sourdough is lifted out the honeycombs of kitchens Satan out on Broadway and Pacific blowing kisses
[Hook] x2
[Verse 3: Aesop Rock] 40 winks, pissy at the grizzly, no lullaby Clark's point trollops off the docks to flood and multiply Until a brilliant golden motherlode in the bank Hold up your drink She said between her legs that other gold's pink Sold it for cheap along the waterfront, wretched little clusters Push a fuss of smutty huffing plus some itching and discomfort Little wonder you, in public for the buck, it's rugged Rusty cutter gut any cutty drunkard who want it Hellcat Maggie, aggie, move to the music She had learned to spoon pollution in a climate pruned for losing Thousand more like her in the cow-yards moo-ing, ooh-ee Beneath the brutal harvest moon and UV Note it's the very same foundation on which you and yours sleep Layers of players over debaucherous troubadour speak They puff the pathogens and never let the humidors breathe That's why you grew up on stale tobacco and juniper trees