The Road To Damascus

Words and Music; Pat Drummond. (5.19)

For Tracy Huntington.

Dateline: Stewarts River, NSW, Jan 28th, 1997

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I was coming down the highway somewhere south of Crowdy Bay

She was standing on the shoulder near the turn

With a mane of wheaten hair and a soft cornflower stare

and a smile that touched my fatherly concern

So I pulled off onto the gravel, asked how far she had to travel

and she said "Just down the road a bit, I guess."

And as she leaned under the housing the buttons of her blouse

fell open to the contours of her breast.

 

Chorus: The Road To Damascus doesn't run through Stewarts River

Nobody's saving anyone today.

Saint or Sinner, there's a toll for the journey through your soul.

Everybody's seeking something so they say

As the road to Stewarts River rolls away.

 

We'd been driving for a while when she leaned over with a smile

and asked if I would care to break the drive

But I said "I'm not that hungry... Are you?" She said "I could be...

...if you pulled over to the side."

She put her hand down on my knee and said,"Don't be so naive;

if you don't know what to do, I'll show you how."

Every male fantasy came rushing up to me as she

said, "Eighty dollars buys my body for an hour."

Chorus:

(spoken) And the shadows in the forest

seemed to darken for a moment;

It took every ounce of strength to drive them back;

She watched that struggle in a glance

And she knew she'd missed the chance

But she didn't miss a beat; she just changed her tack.

 

Her eyes began to shine and she placed her hand on mine

and a frightened child replaced the pouting whore

"Look, I need sixty seven dollars. I am desperate for the money

and I've never done this kind of thing before.

I hocked my mother's new TV for some dope on New Year's Eve

and I've got to get it back before it's sold."

It was a consummate performance aimed at Christians or reformers

She was selling me the chance to save her soul.

 

But every doleful downcast verse had been so perfectly rehearsed

I knew better than to heckle from the wings

I counted out the money, and I put it on the dash

And I said, "I want to tell you just one thing.

 

"Look, I've seen you here before; last week when I was going North

so I know you work this stretch out of the town."

Eighty dollars for her body? Sixty-seven for that story?

Lord, I thought she had her prices upside down.

I said "Go on, take the money but you can keep the kisses, Honey.

Just this once the world wants nothing in return"

and she said "Isn't that a pity 'Mr Righteous High and Mighty'

'cause I reckon there are things you still could learn."

 

When she got out in Stewarts River

I watched in the rear view mirror

As she crossed the four lane to the other side

It was a Kenwood truck that swerved and pulled over to the kerb

but I can't tell you who got taken for the ride.

 

And if the road to Damascus doesn't run through Stewarts River

then, Tracy, I'm more like you than you know.

For we are both out on this highway telling stories for a living and

and competing for the crumbs that people throw.

 

When you got out, you started laughing

You said, "You must be after something!"

I said I wanted nothing...but that was wrong

You see you're always on the hustle for another trick to turn

and I'm always on the hustle for a song

...and I paid sixty seven-dollars for this song!

 

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