When the streets are a neon-lit jungle - and a blond sings a song in a bar
When a drifter drives into a city - at the wheel of a Chevrolet car
Then you’re watching a black and white movie - with a hard-bitten private eye star
Where the low-down and dirty meet the high-heeled and flirty - in a Hollywood film noir
When the story is too hard to follow - and the plot gets as tangled as string
And you can’t tell today from tomorrow - and you don’t understand anything
When a fan on the ceiling is turning - and there’s smoke from a fat-man’s cigar
Well it isn’t surprising that the body-counts rising - for you are in a bar in noir
Chorus:
Noir is a place people go to - when they have no where to go
Everyone there has an angle - crooner sings, “Set ‘em up Joe”
Sirens are constantly wailing - under a monochrome sky
Lady walks into a nightclub - Sam plays ‘As Time Goes By’
Whiskey is not always bourbon - and postmen don’t always ring twice
But the rules of noir mean there’s always a bar and a blond with a heart made of ice
When James Cagney is playing the tough guy - and he sleep-walks through paranoid dreams
When the search-lights are raking the night-sky - and the cross-talk is not what it seems
When Bogart is wrapped in his trenchcoat - with a voice that is nicotine tar
Well it’s low-lies & bow-ties and sly spies and wise-guys - in a Hollywood film noir
May that falcon from Malta keep flying - over streets where the crime never sleeps
May the femme fatale ladies of fortune sing songs to the hustlers & creeps
Let me roam through those old movie channels - in the hope I might get my next fix
Where detectives are sexist - drink whiskey for breakfast - the ladies called dolls,
dames & chicks
Chorus:
