VØNTAK - Blood on Bourbon Street

Fog hangs low on Dauphine
Gas lamps lean
They watch you breathe
Old bricks sweating stories
You feel eyes in the light
Oak leaves
A laugh in an empty alley
Perfume in the midnight heat
Your name in a stranger's accent
Though no one's on the street
There's blood on Bourbon Street
And secrets in the cobblestones
Every shadow's got a heartbeat
Every sinner's never quite alone
New Orleans keeps the mysteries
Locked in teeth in velvet sleeves
There's blood on Bourbon Street
And it never lets you leave
Shadows candlelit windows
Cards turn slow by weathered hands
She smiles, says, baby, I know you
Draws your future in the glass and sand
You blink and the room grows colder
Her eyes grow older than the war
She toasts to the ones still thirsty
For the ones that walk no more
There's blood on Bourbon Street
And secrets in the cobblestones
Every shadow's got a heartbeat
Every sinner's never quite alone
New Orleans keeps the mysteries
Locked in teeth in velvet sleeves
There's blood on Bourbon Street
And it never lets you leave
Do you hear that hymn in the alley?
Choir made of names you don't recall
Do you feel that kiss on your collar?
Nobody there at all
Moonlight stains your white shirt crimson
Though nothing touched your skin
You swear you're just imagining
Then someone bites down on your sin
There's blood on Bourbon Street
And secrets in the cobblestones
Every shadow's got a heartbeat
Every sinner's never quite alone
New Orleans counts the rosaries
Smoking teeth in velvet sleeves
There's blood on Bourbon Street
And you're part of what you ease