A song for Christmas

It's been a melancholy week with bad news near and far, so while I was going to wait until close to Christmas to put this up, I'll do it now. It's become one of my favorite Christmas songs. I couldn't find an Mp3 of it so here are just the lyrics.

Rudy, by The Be Good Tanyas

Rudy lives on the borderline
Between civilization and basic survival
The summertime treats him fairly well
But the wintertime is a bitter cold rival

It's wintertime now in Georgetown
The streets come alive with the Christmas lights
And Rudy sleeps on the warm air grate
With a newspaper blanket
On December nights.

Deck the halls,
Rudolph the red-nosed wino knows it's Christmas time
Jingle bells and Christmas shoppers dashing through the snow
God bless ye merry gentlemen
Who've found it in your hearts to flip Rudy a thin
And I'll be home for Christmas
But this man has no place to go.

Christmas has a meaning it in all
To the people of greed and incredible waste
Who seek the deeper meaning in a shopping mall
In a yuletide spirit of impatience and haste
Rudy is a patient man
Who tries to see the beauty in everything
Is not a very demanding soul
Whose only wish is to live until the spring

Nobody knows the reasons why
Things turn out the way they do
And there ain't no one to tell you the reasons why
There's fortunate folks like me and you
Rudy must have people somewhere
Who wonder what became of a man
And Rudy must wonder the same damn thing
As the crowd passes by and he sticks out his hand.

Deck the halls,
Rudolph the red-nosed wino knows it's Christmas time
Jingle bells and Christmas shoppers dashing through the snow
God bless ye merry gentlemen
Who have found it in your hearts to flip Rudy a thin
And I'll be home for Christmas
But this man has no place to go.

Rudy died on the borderline
Of a civilized world on Christmas Eve
And the shoppers shopped and the temperatures dropped
On a man whose absence won't be grieved
Peace on the soul of the cop who found him
In a booth with his hand frozen to a telephone
Y'know, I think I know who he had on the line
And Rudy won't spend this Christmas alone.

Deck the halls,
Rudolph the red-nosed wino knows it's Christmas time
Jingle bells and Christmas shoppers dashing through the snow
God bless ye merry gentlemen
Who have found it in your hearts to flip Rudy a thin
And I'll be home for Christmas
But this year Rudy gets to go
Yeah I'll be home for Christmas
And this year, Rudy gets to go

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