Southbound

Well the taxi man turned off the meter
And said 'Looks like we'll be here a while'
So I stretched out the window to see it
And the tail lights stared back for a mile
And we all have our places to go
And nobody likes standing still
But whoever's upfront isn't going back home
And at least soon enough we all will

'Cause we're backed up, complaining, frustrated
When somebody's just lost their kid
And we've all been belated
But they never made it
And that's gotta be worse than just waiting a bit
Longer to get to the south side
When they never did

So I tried not to count all the sirens
And the broken white glass on the ground
But you couldn't ignore there'd been fire when
The smell of dead smoke hung around
Maybe five more emergency vehicles
Could barely get through to the site
And the officer gave us an earful
But we knew he was well in his right

'Cause we're backed up, complaining, frustrated
When somebody's just lost their kid
And we've all been belated
But they never made it
And that's gotta be worse than just waiting a bit
Longer to get to the south side
When they never did

Well an hour'd gone when we started moving
And we passed what was left as we went
And the worries fell fast of the time we'd been losing
'Cause at least we had hours to be spent
And I dare say we all drove home slowly
And I dare say there wasn't much said
With our eyes fixed upon the road only
And the same pictures circling our head

'Cause we're backed up, complaining, frustrated
When somebody's just lost their kid
And we've all been belated
But they never made it
And that's gotta be worse than just waiting a bit
Longer to get to the south side
When they never did