Old City Bar

In an old city bar that's never too far
From the places that gather the dreams that have been

In the safety of night with its old neon light
It beckons to strangers and they always come in

And the snow it was falling the neon was calling
The music was low and the night Christmas Eve

And here was the danger that even with strangers
Inside of this night it's easier to believe

Then the door opened wide and a child came inside
That no one in the bar had seen there before

And he asked did we know that outside in the snow
That someone was lost standing outside our door

And the bartender gazed through the smoke and the haze
Through the window and ice to that corner streetlight

Where standing alone by a broken pay phone
Was a girl the child said could no longer get home

And the snow it was falling the neon was calling
The bartender turned and said, not that I care
But how would you know this? The child said I've noticed
If one could be home they'd be already there

Then the bartender came out from behind the bar
And in all of his life he was never that far
And he did something else that he thought no one saw
When he took all the cash from the register drawer

Then he followed the child to the girl across the street
And we watched from the bar as they started to speak
Then he called for a cab and he said J.F.K.
Put the girl in the cab then the cab drove away
And we saw in his hand that the cash was all gone
From the light that she had wished upon

If you want to arrange it this world you can change it
If we could somehow make this Christmas thing last

By helping a neighbor or even a stranger
To know who needs help you need only just ask

Then he looked for the child but the child wasn't there
Just the wind and the snow waltzing dreams through the air

So he walked back inside somehow different I think
For the rest of the night no one paid for a drink

And the cynics will say that some neighborhood kid
Wandered in on some bums in the world where they hid

But they weren't there so they couldn't see
By an old neon star on that night, Christmas Eve

When the snow it was falling the Neon was calling
In case you should wonder in case you should care

Why we on our own never went home
On that night of all nights we were already there

* * * Story * * *

Then all at once inside that night he saw it all so clear
The answer that he sought so long had always been so near

It's every gift that someone gives expecting nothing back
It's every kindness that we do each simple little act