Blues: AAB style shifting to Folk Blues Vocals: Raw, expressive female voice with a dry, conversational rasp contralto range, wide and deep vibrato Guitar: Acoustic steel-string played with a steady alternating-thumb bass and syncopated ragtime/Piedmont fingerpicking (Mississippi John Hurt style). Harmonica: Played simultaneously by the singer-guitarist using a metal neck rack/holder between vocal lines, blowing sharp, rhythmic, chugging fills that echo the guitar bassline. (Steady, bouncing alternating-bass guitar pick throughout; short neck-rack harmonica fills after the 1st and 3rd lines of each stanza) (Verse 1) I used to love the fog rollin' over Golden Gate... Lord, I used to love the fog rollin' over Golden Gate... Now that cold white mist just feels like a heavy weight. (Harmonica interlude - 4 bars of lonesome, chugging blues harp) (Verse 2) The sea lions barkin’’ down on Pier Thirty-Nine... Yeah, them sea lions barkin’ down on Pier Thirty-Nine... Used to sound like laughter, now they’re just crying over mine. (Harmonica interlude - bend on the 2-reed draw, pulsing with the thumb-pick) (Verse 3) We took the cable car ridin’ all the way to the bay We took the cable car ridin’ all the way to the bay... Now the sound of that iron bell just drives my heart away. (Harmonica interlude) (Verse 4) Them Painted Ladies standin’ tall in Alamo Square... Yeah, them Painted Ladies standin’ tall in Alamo Square... Look like faded postcard pictures of a love that ain't there. (Harmonica interlude) (Verse 5) I walk these steep concrete hills with my head hung low... I walk these steep concrete hills with my head hung low... Runnin’ from the ghosts of the town I used to know. (Extended harmonica solo - 8 bars, rustic, unpolished, rhythmic harp and thumb- (The guitar picking opens up into a driving, strummed-and-picked 6/8 folk rhythm. The singer drops the strict 12-bar blues format into a sprawling, poetic talking-blues delivery.) (Verse 6) Well, I walked on down through Chinatown, past the lantern lights and steam, Looking for a single street that wasn't tangled in our dream. I stood outside that old cafe where you used to buy me wine, Watching tourists taking photos near the trolley track line. Every corner holds a dagger, every alley holds a ghost, And the places that I cherished are the ones that hurt the most. (Verse 7) Now the cabaret cars are ringing, but the music’s hollowed out, Just a circus for the lovers who ain't learned what love's about I keep my collar pulled up high against the Pacific breeze Afraid if I turn around, it'll be your face I see... Yeah, I'm afraid I'll see you walking down the block Hoping for a miracle that’s bound to turn the clock. But worse than seeing you stand there looking distant, cold, and free, Is the quiet fear knowing... that You won’t be there to see! (Outro) (Tempo slows down back into Mississippi John Hurt alternating fingerpicking) Yeah, Frisco... Golden Gate used to sing a sweet song to me and you, Now it's just a bridge painted over in a lonely kinda blue. (Final trailing harmonica bend on the neck rack, fading into the rhythmic thump of the guitar’s low E-string)
