Loudon Wainwright III
No Sure Way
So I started out on High Street, had to travel into town
Like some Orpheus descending through a turnstile underground
From Brooklyn Heights into Manhattan, which was where I had to be
Now you have to take the A train there's no more service on the C
And when you are underwater sometimes the mind plays tricks
And there beneath the East river it felt like the river Styx
The first stop was Broadway Nassau a few more passengers got in
We all sat no one was standing there somewhere we’d never been
They say heaven's high above us hell's not far below
In that subway tunnel there was no sure way to know
Chambers St. a closed ghost station; passing through we seemed to glide
Like prisoners inside compartments on some house of horrors ride
The walls were tiled I hadn’t noticed they seemed so antiseptically clean
But we knew what we were under the lights were on that seemed obscene
And there I saw the three initials W, T, and then the C
I'd survived somehow was living but somewhere I shouldn't be
At the next stop the doors opened and I emerged up above ground
I was in another country Elysian Fields no, Chinatown
They say heaven's high above us hell's not far below
Standing on Canal Street there was no sure way to know
They say heaven's high above us hell's not far below
Standing on Canal Street there was no sure way to go