Invitation to the Blues

She was up against the register with an apron and a spatula
Yesterday's deliveries and tickets for the bachelors
She's a moving violation from her conk down to her shoes
See, it's just an invitation to the blues

And you feel like Cagney, she looks like Rita Hayworth
At the counter of the Schwab's drugstore
Maybe she's single, alone and likes to mingle
You gotta be patient, try and pick up a clue

How you gonna like 'em, over medium or scrambled?
'Cause any way's the only way, be careful not to gamble
On a guy with a suitcase and a ticket getting out of here
In a tired ol' bus station and an old pair of shoes
Thanks for an invitation to the blues

You can't take your eyes off her, get another cup of java
Somethin' the way she pours it for you, joking with the customers
Like, "Mercy, mercy, Mr. Percy, there ain't nothing back in Jersey
Except broken-down jalopy of a man I left behind"

And the dream that I was chasing, and a battle with booze
And an open invitation to the blues

She had a candy-apple Caddy and a sugar daddy
And a bank account and everything, accustomed to the finer things
But he left her for a socialite, he didn't love her 'cept at night
And even then he was drunk and never even showed her that he cared

So they took the registration, and the car-keys and her shoes
Left her with an invitation to the blues
You shouldn't come to lose

There's a Continental Trailways leaving here a local bus tonight
Good evening, you can have my seat, I'm sticking 'round here for a while
There's a room at the Squire, the filling station's hiring
I can kneed here every night, what the hell I've got to lose?

Crazy sensation, go or stay, now I gotta choose
And I'll accept your invitation to the blues