Forty Eight Twenty Three Twenty Second Street
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Now, as for my aunt
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Who told on me
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She was always wearing her turbans
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Sailing back to Greece on the Normandy
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Having dinner at the captain's table
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Sitting on the deck with 5 men surrounding her
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With uncle Sam in the back row
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Back at home, riding up the Taygetus on a donkey named David
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With her soft leather boots dangling off to the side
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So full of pride
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So full of pride.
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Profitis Elias, so high you can see us
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4823 22nd St., standing there with cashmere overcoats
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And those turbans with their Arabian silver
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And ostrich and papagou feather hats
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And not far down from our koumbaros Betinis
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We've got a secret between us Betinis
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In the back of the Hawthorne smoke shop
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In the basement of the hat factory
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The fedoras got glued together
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But in that back basement...
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In that back basement, a lot of things got sewn up!
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A full compliment of grinchy Italians
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Counting up on their stubby fingers, and smoking, I'm told
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The least sophisticated cigars
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The local lottery and so forth
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Like anybody was going to get a nit out of that nut
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Though what a lucky loser is our five thousand dollars a day friend and koumbaros Betinis
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We've got a secret between us, Betinis
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In the back of the Hawthorne smoke shop,
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Haberdashery was the least of it
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In the basement of the hat factory
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The fedoras got glued together
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But in that back basement...
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In that back basement, a lot of things got sewn up
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We've got a secret between us, Betinis.
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Five thousand dollars a day
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Five thousand dollars a day
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Five thousand dollars a day
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Five thousand dollars a day
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In the basement of the hat factory
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The fedoras got glued together
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But in that back basement
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In that back basement, a lot of things got sewn up!
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We've got a secret between us, Betinis
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Not that nobody knows, like nobody knows about the white doves that flew out the cake at the brother's wedding
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In your hat factory, Betinis, they count up all the buffalo nickels
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And silver certificates wrung from Lake Superior spirits
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And prize fight foolery, and sluts speaking easy in the closets on 12th St.
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And in exchange you put in your pants $5,000 a day to stick under your bed for starters
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But later in the laundry, so you can feel free to chase your wife around the table
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When you feel she looked at the apricot and boysenberry boy twice
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Forty Eight Twenty Three Twenty Second Street
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The Fiery Furnaces |