Oranges Off the Import Barge

Paroles de « Oranges Off the Import Barge »

Intro: solo accordion played legato

Verse: Marlow

Dock nineteen, quarter after four,
the barge comes in with the dirt still on the crates.
Twelve a box, and they charge you for the smell —
Ines, come here, look, one of them has a leaf.

[Ines]
A leaf. An actual leaf.
Sable, don't price it, don't tell me what it weighs.
Marlow, hold it up against the light,
you can see the little white threads underneath.

Chorus: both

Oranges off the import barge,
grown in ground, grown in ground.
Nothing here tastes like the sun anymore
but this one almost does, this one almost does.

Verse: Marlow

My mother kept them in a bowl she never washed,
December, on the radiator, till the room went warm and sweet.
She'd take the peel off in one long spiral, hand it to me like a rope,
and say, that's the part no machine has ever learned to do.

[Ines]
You've never told me that.
Six years, and I get it on a loading dock at four.

[Marlow]
You never asked me what I miss.

[Ines]
I asked. Sable answered for you. Sable answered for you.

Chorus: both

Oranges off the import barge,
grown in ground, grown in ground.
Nothing here tastes like the sun anymore
but this one almost does, this one almost does.

Bridge: Sable, tempo pushing

Excuse me — the fruit is priced by weight,
and your ceiling has revised itself since yesterday:
light rain, holding, light rain —
shall I translate what he just said
into something easier to hear?

[Ines]
No.

[Marlow]
No. Not today.

[Sable]
Noted. I'll wait in the elevator.

Chorus: both, a semitone higher

Oranges off the import barge,
grown in ground, grown in ground.
Nothing here tastes like the sun anymore
but this one almost does, this one almost does.

Outro: Marlow

Give me your hand. I'll do the spiral.

[Ines]
One piece? All the way around?

[Marlow]
All the way around.

Chorus of four to six

All the way around, all the way around —
(and the price goes up in the spring)