LyricMeaning

Guns Under the Counter
The Fiery Furnaces

Well, good for you.
But we have something too.
So said my aunt.

A bowling alley and lunch counter
filled with fellas on their lunch break,
from the Western Electric plant at a slant across the street.
And next door when So-and-So's men would come in, and the man himself very often.

It was guns under the counter every time.
Guns under the counter every time.
Guns under the counter every time,
and bowling on the second floor.

Very often he was there himself,
and I, of course, had a special small ball as a little girl,
and didn't I grow up, didn't I grow up to be captain of the Morton girls bowling team? I did!
Though I don't attach much importance to that now, or then,
then riding the old Garfield El downtown,
and on up to State Street,
and back to guns under the counter,
guns under the counter every time.
guns under the counter,
and bowling on the second floor.

I never liked Douglas park,
and no one likes it now,
but that's neither here nor there.
(There, or here.)
West of Crawford, where it is I stayed,
Chicago straights alliterates.
(North, and south.)
I lived in the Ms.
But it was down on the south side,
Dr. Peter Pane and his brother had their doughnut factory.
And I mention it now because...

That one day
(Now I wasn't there,
We were in Davenport at that time),
some north side Irish bullets came zipping through that window.
In Cicero,
never stand at a window!
And past the counter,
looking for those men,
who had their guns behind the counter,
and you could smell the boiled cabbage on those bullets!
One of them managed to hit a young pinsetter in the leg;
wouldn't you know it.
But luckily Panagoulis -
Dr. Peter Pane -
was there to see to it.
He took some special blackberry filling right out of his lunch bag
and applied it to the young man's wound.
You see, Dr. Peter Pane was an interesting man,
and an even more interesting doctor,
as he would use no material or remedy that wasn't used in the manufacture of his doughnuts,
down on 82nd and Kedzie with his brother.
But he tempered this by the fact that he would rarely use ingredients that didn't have some medicinal purpose.
Or so he thought.

Here in the doughnut factory,
they have confectioner's sugar
so sweet it was caustic.
And chocolate so bitter that it could kill typhus!
Glazing so shiny,
it could set back glaucoma.
And filling so filling,
you didn't need stitches!
The same special blackberry filling that was applied to the young man's wound.
Blackberry filling that came straight from Dr. Peter Pane's lunch bag.

We were in Davenport,
with a big restaurant downtown,
and I once kept a jackrabbit in the back yard,
and I'd walk across the river to Rock Island,
to Greek school,
on a fine fall day.
And I'd look up at the sky
and down at the river.
But Davenport changed its name to Hooverville,
so to speak,
and we had to go to Chicago to move in with my aunt.


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Lyrics by The Fiery Furnaces

  Automatic Husband   Benton Harbor Blues   Bitter Tea   Black-Hearted Boy   Borneo   Cabaret of the Seven Devils   Charmaine Champagne   Clear Signal from Cairo   Cousin Chris   Cups & Punches   Cut the Cake   Does It Remind You of When   Drive to Dallas   Duffer St. George   Duplexes of the Dead   Even in the Rain   Evergreen   Ex-Guru   Forty Eight Twenty Three Twenty Second Street   In My Little Thatched Hut   Japanese Slippers   Keep Me in the Dark   Leaky Tunnel   Lost at Sea   Mandolin and Maracas   My Egyptian Grammar   Navy Nurse   Nevers!   Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)   Oh Sweet Woods   Police Sweater Blood Vow   Pricked in the Heart   Ray Bouvier   Rehearsing My Choir   Restorative Beer   Right By Conquest   Seven Silver Curses   Sing for Me   Single Again   Smelling Cigarettes   Staring at the Steeple   Sweet Spots   Take Me Round Again   Teach Me Sweetheart   The End Is Near   The Garfield El   The Old Hag Is Sleeping   The Philadelphia Grand Jury   The Vietnamese Telephone Ministry   The Wayward Granddaughter   Uncle Charlie   Waiting to Know You   We Wrote Letters Everyday   Whistle Rhapsody?   Wicker Whatnots   Widow City   Winter

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