///*****/// [Intro] (Sleazy open riff, cowbell, crowd whistling) And this one is about the other side of the world. Los Angeles! [Verse 1] Palm trees dying underneath a sky the colour of gin Every kid on Sunset with a demo and a grin Flyers on the windshields, hairspray in the air Twenty thousand dreamers and about four of them get there I came out in eighty-one with a duffel and a lie Slept behind the Whisky in a car that wouldn't die Ate the free hors d'oeuvres at parties I was never asked to And I would do the whole thing over just to feel that hungry too [Pre-Chorus] Nobody tells the truth on Sunset Boulevard So let me tell it now, and let me tell it hard [Chorus] This is my Sunset Strip confessional Every stupid, beautiful, unforgivable thing I gave my twenties to a boulevard of neon And it gave me back this song to sing Sunset Strip confessional! [Verse 2] There was a girl from Kansas who could sing like Etta James Last I heard she's answering the phones in Van Nuys with another name There was a drummer, Tommy something, who could play the moon apart He's got a wife and a hardware store and he says he's fine at heart And there was me, the loudest and the least talented of all Who wanted it so badly that I climbed the whole damn wall So don't you ever tell me that the dream was just a lie It was real, it was cruel, and I would climb it till I die [Pre-Chorus] Nobody tells the truth on Sunset Boulevard So let me tell it now, and let me tell it hard [Chorus] This is my Sunset Strip confessional Every stupid, beautiful, unforgivable thing I gave my twenties to a boulevard of neon And it gave me back this song to sing Sunset Strip confessional! [Guitar Solo] (Greasy, swaggering, wah-inflected, big showy sleaze bends) [Breakdown] (Half time, hips only, crowd whistling) Los Angeles! You beautiful liar! Say it with me! Whoa-oh-oh! [Bridge] I drove past the old apartment on the way in yesterday There's a laundromat and a coffee shop where all the noise once played And I sat there in a rented car and laughed until I cried Because a hundred thousand people came tonight because we tried [Final Chorus] This is my Sunset Strip confessional Every stupid, beautiful, unforgivable thing I gave my twenties to a boulevard of neon And it gave me back this song to sing Sunset Strip confessional! Sunset Strip confessional tonight! [Verse 3] The Rainbow and the Roxy and a hundred smaller rooms Every one of them a chapel and a courtroom and a tomb You could play the greatest set of your entire living life And be forgotten by the time you loaded out at half past five But somewhere in that grinding there was music being made Real and stupid and alive and utterly unafraid And every band you ever loved came crawling out of that So raise it up for Los Angeles and everything she had [Outro] (Cowbell, sleazy riff repeating, crowd roaring) To everybody who never made it out of that parking lot. This one's yours.
