DATSUN RED LEMON

Oh Datsun, oh Datsun
What ails you so?
I was going to call you "Good-body"
But "The Great Red Lemon" took hold

I was going to go to Missoula - this morning
I woke up euphoric
Glorifying that mechanic
Who Yesterday had you fixed up

I turned on the switch, praise his work you started
But as I pressed to accelerate
It was apparent your degenerate timing
Had slipped while I slept

I remember weeks ago
When the doctor whispered cancer
I opened your hood, saying "doc is there hope"
He glanced in mumbling "Maybe, maybe no"

But with a prognosis that poor,
I pulled out a role of green-backs
Swearing "Where there’s money there’s hope"
Refusing to forget, how I’d already spent
Nine hundred bucks just to call you my own

It was true, you owned a piece of my wallet
So I said "Go for it Doc, Doc do what you can"
I said "bill me later"
But he kept billing me again and again

As I recall it started in the throttle linkage
Took over the carburetor
Crept into the kingpins
Destroyed my dreams

The cancer got the switch
The distributor shaft bushings
The crankshaft pulley bolt
Came tumbling out

The radiator ceiling started leaking
The front end kept shaking
No matter what medication
The doctor prescribed

Front end alignment, wheel balancing, nothing would jive
Until after a month of rebuilding
And diagnosing the steering
An oblong tire got fired for bouncing along

 Yes Datsun, darma Datsun
It was barely yesterday
I gave Reno all that money
So I could clutch you in my arms

Instead, It's been hands on wet sockets
Twisting out your worn guts
Exchanging big dollar parts
For my hard earned bucks

Yet for each breakdown I conquer in you
There are a thousand of its kind
Hiding and stalking
To ambush and plague me, at just the wrong time

I hang signs on your door saying
Keys on the floorboard, see you at four
Hoping some idiot, stumbling along
Climbs in for a joy ride, slowly gets burned
Evaporates in a hailstorm, never returns

I've been bent over your hood
Sucking in so much bad luck
I need a new mantra, to offer you up
Here, for a bottle of white wine, come, taste my lame duck

Here, let me toast co-op brother Reno
Who cashed in his Albatross
As he devoured my Money
I actually paid him
To carry his cross"

But now Datsun, lost cause Datsun, I am contemplating mercy killing
Driving you off the side of Teakettle Mountain
Smashing you into the base of Bad Rock Canyon
Mauling you with a sledge hammer, until you're crippled and dead

I'll throw a stoners party for you, down at the bottom of Big Pit
Sell two thousand tickets, to the Red Rockers Bash
Cheer as you disappear, Belch as you're buried,
Now where is that white wine, give me the last rock

Enough is enough
Last night when I took you to pick up my date
Your throttle got stuck, you crashed through her gate
You collapsed in a fit, croaked in her face

I untied your hood, fiddled about
Pumped the accelerator and spun out
Down the highway we went flying at 2 miles an hour
To the movie, to the movie
To get there a day late

'Twas a hideous irritation though
When your wheels started shaking
Just as I was sweet talking this babe
Into making a quiet escape
But why, why couldn't you wait

You were scheduled to break down
In that dark romantic forest
Leaving her helpless, stranded in my arms
To lie by the Intimate River, tumbling 'til dawn

Not in front of J.C. Penny's estate
Not across from the Police Station with the cop lights flashing
But why, why couldn't you wait
Your canons backfired as we kissed goodnight

'Twas home again, home again, at a slow jog
To send Neil the Weasel, my doctor a call
To explain all that had happened
In the next day or so

The front end's got cancer
The brake cylinder's broken
The rear end's collapsing
The motor is dead
He said, "It sounds radical"
I hurried to tell him "Doc, that's not all

The carburetor's got constipation, pneumonia's setting in
Ringworms encircled the tires, all have gone bald
The cops nailed the front flashers
For improper exposure

The battery's developed carbuncles
Three plugs have been fired
Two valves seem burned out
The camshaft's been busted"

I was bailing out the shifter
And placing a gag on the muffler
When he halted my litany
With the slash of a pen
And the sting of a bee
Down came these words
" Radiation Therapy"

I called up the military
Got all the sight info
Then towed that red plaque
Out to White Sands Nuclear Testing Plateau

Just as the sun streaked purple
Through a harbor sky
I kissed her on the hood
And whispered "it comes from on high"

The next time I turned around, a bright mushroom cloud
Was erupting skyward, spreading its wings
Of red hot radiation
Over that molten dead mass
It use to be my Datsun   pickup I guess

But now Datsun, definitely dead Datsun
Thank God Dead Datsun
That All and Everything that ailed you so
Has been left in a scrap heap
Of toxic ashes and snow

And when this deadly cloud clears
I'll be back at this scene
To pick up a few particles
Inject them in a red apple and hand it to dear Reno

To gag on this winter
With a witches hinx minx
With a silent goodnight

Let us join now together
And drive a stake through each tire
Before the ghost of that Datsun
Comes honking at my gate

---

Gary Lange © 1979