[Intro] I point at the window and laugh because the guy in the snow looks like a balloon about to pop. A carrot jams up my nose, and I catch you looking good tonight, so I ask you out before I can overthink it. We get married on the spot, load up seven cats and dogs, and drive them across Texas in a busted road show. We roll into saloons and sell the act to drunk guys at the bar, claiming the animals can do tricks. They cannot. They just do what animals do, right there on the floor, and we play it like magic, grin wide, scoop up the cash, and bow like we meant it. Tod shows up next, a horse with a name and a backstory, and he hauls us to the nearest pub while he talks big about his fights with the Argonauts, the evil beings from that planet where robots learned how to make trouble. I nod along, but my head is already somewhere else, back at the shipyard where Maggie runs the place with Skip and Binky, and they push old garden rakes to tourists like they’re relics from a seaside cave. Down the road, the witch in Tommy’s tavern keeps quilting rubber boots in the window, and every time I pass I swear she’s smiling at the mess. I work the docks, I carry the load, and I watch the city turn a salad bowl into a pool and call it progress. They want lifeguards, permits, and public money, and everybody keeps signing off like that makes sense. These are the salad days, and I know it because everybody says it loud enough to make it true. I skip the mayo, I keep moving, and I head for the real thing: deep dish in Chicago, then down south to see your aunt in Columbia, the one who trains prisoners for their prison prom. They dance to whatever they want, just not songs about breaking out, and I can respect that. Then the road bends past Banana House Bingo Salad Farm, the lorry drags by, and I throw my hands up and yell why me as the whole thing rattles on. [Hook] and we laugh [laugh] ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha [laughing] ahh ha ha ha ha [laughs hysterical cartoon] muah ha ha muh-ha ha ha [wild laughter] [Chorus] These are the salad days, these are the salad days. THESE ARE THE SALAD DAYS!
