[Intro: stomping piano chords, spoken male into a bad mic] Hi How's everybody doing tonight (one laugh from the back) [Verse 1] Basement under Lombard Street, the sign says Open Mic Tonight Brick wall, a ceiling fan, a mic that only works if you hold it right Eleven years of Tuesdays, seven minutes, and maybe five are tight Twelve tired people and Sal behind the bar, who's never laughed in his life But there's Ma in her bus driver coat at the back table every week And she laughs before the punchline every single time I speak [Pre-Chorus] And I bomb (and I bomb) And the ceiling fan goes round But there's one laugh at the back Every Tuesday, the same sound [Chorus] I've got a tight five (tight five) Under one bare light And a laugh I know by heart At the back, every Tuesday night Every joke dies in the middle But she laughs anyway Give me five more minutes, Ma I'm gonna make them stay [Verse 2] Eleven years, I did the landlord and the pigeons and my knees I did my ex, I did the light rail, I did my cousin's wedding speech Then one night Sal says, Nicky, sit, there's something you should hear Every Tuesday since you started, she's been in by six right here Puts two twenties on the bar and says, the back row's drinks are mine Long as they stay till my son's done, and they laugh, and they laugh on time [Pre-Chorus] And I sat in my car On Lombard Street till three Every laugh I ever got She'd been buying them for me [Chorus] I've got a tight five (tight five) Under one bare light And a laugh I know by heart At the back, every Tuesday night Every joke dies in the middle But she laughs anyway Give me five more minutes, Ma I'm gonna make them stay [Bridge: piano alone, then the band builds] Five hundred seventy two Tuesdays, kid, Sal said, you do the math Twenty two thousand dollars of strangers, and one free laugh Next Tuesday I threw out my tight five, every joke I ever wrote Got up and told the truth about a woman in a bus driver coat Who packs her lunch in foil all week to buy strangers a round And the room went dead, then somebody snorted, then the whole place came down [Final Chorus: key change up, full band] I've got a tight five (tight five) And it's all about you, Ma I've got a tight five (tight five) And a laugh I know by heart Five hundred seventy two Tuesdays Twenty two thousand on the bar And the only laugh that wasn't paid for Was yours from the start [Outro: piano, spoken male into the mic] You've been a great crowd Ma, you've been a great crowd
