There is a city by the sea
A gentle company
I don't suppose you want to?
And as it tells its sorry tale
In harrowing detail
Its hollowness will haunt you
Its streets and boulevards
Orphans and oligarchs
And here's a plaintive melody
A truncated symphony.
An ocean's garbled vomit on the shore:
Los Angeles, I'm yours
O ladies, pleasant and demure
Hollow-cheek'd and sure
I can see your undies)
And all the boys you drag about
On empty, fallow fount
From Saturdays to Mondays.
You bridge and tunnel crowd
Hanging your trousers down at heel.
This is the realest thing
As ancient choirs sing
A rushing rabble revels from above
Los Angeles, my love.
O what a rush of ripe elan!
Languor on divans
Dalliant and dainty!
But the smell of burnt cocaine,
The dolor and the drain
It only makes me cranky
O great calamity,
Den of iniquity and tears
How I abhor this place
Its sweet and bitter taste
Has left me wretched, wretching on all fours
Los Angeles, I'm yours