Red Barchetta (Live In YYZ 1981)

I'd like to do a song for you now
That takes place in Rochester, I think
It's a song about a car
It's called the Red Barchetta

My uncle has a country place that no one knows about
He says it used to be a farm before the Motor Law
And on Sundays I elude the eyes and hop the turbine freight
Too far outside the wire, where my white-haired uncle waits

Jump to the ground
As the Turbo slows to cross the borderline
Run like the wind
As excitement shivers up and down my spine

Go down in his barn
My uncle preserved for me an old machine
For 50-odd years
To keep it as new has been, his dearest dream

I strip away the old debris that hides a shining car
A brilliant red Barchetta from a better, vanished time
We fire up, the willing engine responding with a roar
Tires spitting gravel, I commit my weekly crime

Wind in my hair
Shifting and drifting
Mechanical music
Adrenaline surge

Well-weathered leather, hot metal and oil
The scented country air
Sunlight on chrome, the blur of the landscape
Every nerve aware

Suddenly, ahead of me, across the mountainside
A gleaming alloy air-car shoots towards me, two lanes wide
I spin around with shrieking tires to run the deadly race
Go screaming through the valley as another joins the chase

Drive like the wind
Straining the limits of machine and man
Laughing out loud with fear and hope
I've got a desperate plan

At the one-lane bridge
I leave the giants stranded at the riverside
Race back to the farm
To dream with my uncle at the fireside

Thank you
Red Barchetta
We'd like to continue in the Mediterranean vein