Lyrics for Black Market Baby as interpreted by Dr_Colossus

Black Market Baby Lyrics
She lives in a house
That's way back off the road
There's a man with a lantern
And he carries her soul
A coal stove and a bed
A skillet and a hound
She drove a camel through a needle
In this sinking board walk town

She's my black market baby
She's my black market baby
She's a diamond that
Wants to stay coal
Wants to stay coal

I swang out wide with her
On hells iron gate
Anything that you wanted
You could have
My eyes say their prayers to her
Sailors ring her bell
Like a moth mistakes a light bulb
For the moon and goes to hell

She's my black market baby
She's my black market baby
She's a diamond that
Wants to stay coal
Wants to stay coal

There's no prayer like desire
There's amnesia in her kiss
She's a swan and a pistol
And she will follow you like this
In Moberly, Missouri at the
Iroquois Hotel
She checked in with the President
And she ran up quite a bill

She's my black market baby
She's my black market baby
She's a diamond that
Wants to stay coal
Wants to stay coal

She's whiskey in a teacup
She gives blondes a lousy name
She's a bonzai Aphrodite
And a ticket back to Spain
She's a hard way to go
And there ain't no way to stop
Every time you play the red
The black is coming up

She's my black market baby
She's my black market baby
She's a diamond that
Wants to stay coal
She wants to stay coal
My baby wants to stay coal
Coal
Coal
My baby wants to stay coal

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GriZzmo
04-13-2006

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I haven't really thought about any deeper meaning of the lyrics, but this song always sends chills down my spine.

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gweeps
12-04-2006

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Another creepy song.

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morbid morag
05-17-2008

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It's probably my filthy mind, but I still think that when Waits sings "She checked in with the President/& she ran up quite a bill" he's making an unspeakably lewd reference to Mr Clinton.

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SocietysPliers
08-19-2008

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^^^That's funny. I'd never thought about that. I DID, however, think of the supposed Marilyn Monroe/JFK link and its alleged possible involvement in her Death.

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undergroundhound
03-20-2009

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My 2 cents: "She's a black-market baby; she's a diamond that wants to stay coal" references something that could be brilliant if only it were given time and/or refinement, but is bound and determined to remain dark and dirty. Diamonds and coal are carbon. Diamond comes from coal put under extreme pressure.
You imagine this woman in the song as a woman who could that be classy, intelligent, and beautiful, but insists on being a sort of a dangerous, unwholesome, low-level prostitute. She does "check in with the president" but she does it at the "Iroquois Hotel" in "Moberly, Missouri." Moberly, MO is not the kind of place classy hookers hang out. It is not the kind of place a president would be allowed to stay in. I actually WORK in Moberly, Missouri and can tell you that it is itself a "black market baby - A diamond that wants to stay coal." Any resident there can tell you that many people have tried to improve the community, the school system etc..., but the mindset of the place aims at mediocrity. If Tom Waits chose this town simply because it had the right poetic sound, he also lucked out by choosing a town that reinforced his metaphor.

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