I used to laugh
I used to chuckle
at the guy in the bar with the folk guitar
and the beer hanging over his buckle
Paid to croon those wimpy tunes
I said I know my luck'll
never run that low
But what did I know?
Because I gotta eat, I gotta eat a little crow

I've been a waiter, I've been a temp
I've had the horror of holding as many jobs
as Larry, Moe and Shemp
But life could not prepare me
for the role I now must fill
as a Desperado on the Dock of the Bay
in Margueritaville

Oh, Lord
Lord, can't you see I've paid my dues
I've got the mellow-rock-folkie-in-the-corner-of-a-fern-bar blues

I'm gettin' heckled
This group of fellas
Pushed to the brink by those very large drinks
with those very small umbrellas
They're well beyond reason, I must appease them
the tension is growing deadly
Can I reach in my soul and summon the strength
to play a Don Ho medley?

Oh, Lord
Lord, can't you see I've paid my dues
I've got the mellow-rock-folkie-in-the-corner-of-a-fern-bar blues

There's a lady at the bar
She's a scary kinda creature
she's got hairs on every mole
and she's got moles on every feature
A gargoyle on a barstool, leering into my eyes
licking off her lipstick and slugging down Mai-Tai's
There's a two-ton drunken sailor
and my life is now imperiled
'cause I blew the last line of the seventeenth verse of
"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"
There's a real estate man with a tanning-booth tan
demanding to hear "Piano Man"
and the bag at the bar just sent me a beer
and I think that it's time to get out of here

Oh, I used to laugh
I used to chuckle
at the guy in the bar with the folk guitar
and the beer hanging over his buckle
Paid to croon those wimpy tunes
I said I know my luck'll
never run that low
But what did I know?
Because I gotta eat, I gotta eat a little crow

I've been a waiter, I've been a temp
I've had the horror of holding as many jobs
as Larry, Moe and Shemp
But life could not prepare me
for the role I now must fill
as a Desperado on the Dock of the Bay
in Margueritaville

Oh, Lord
Lord, can't you see I've paid my dues
I've got the mellow-rock-folkie-in-the-corner-of-a-fern-bar blues

I'm gettin' heckled
This group of fellas
Pushed to the brink by those very large drinks
with those very small umbrellas
They're well beyond reason, I must appease them
the tension is growing deadly
Can I reach in my soul and summon the strength
to play a Don Ho medley?

Oh, Lord
Lord, can't you see I've paid my dues?
I've got the mellow-rock-folkie-abandoning-hope-at-the-end-of-his-rope-in-the-corner-of-a-fern-bar blues