The Tragically Hip
Highway Girl (Live At The Roxy May 3, 1991)
[Verse]
Well I'm going down to see my highway girl
Yeah she just back from around the world
I'm gonna get me a gun, I'm gonna stand on guard
In a little white booth in her front yard

[Verse]
Throwing rocks at her window what could she do
I throw like a girl
If you throw enough rocks one might break through
And she looked out her window when the police came
Oh man to see a big tin man dancing in the rain

[Chorus]
Ah my little highway girl
Ah my little highway girl, oh

[Bridge]
She had a beautiful apartment, she had a beautiful apartment
Well actually, it was a lousy apartment but she's very handy with her hands
And she's got architectural digest magazines, so she knows what she's doing
Shе likes to decorate hеr apartment in the Santa Fe tradition
I told her it was dated, but I see more of the world than she does
She got an apartment where the property was cheap, next to the freeway
She said "I save lots of money but I lose lots of sleep"
"In my apartment, where the property is so cheap"
And we'd laugh, and we'd laugh, and we'd laugh
Oh, we'd take pot shots at the passing cars, and we'd laugh
Oh, we were dumping the body and we'd laugh
We found a place that was dark and rotten
A place where the police helicopters would never spot it
I destroyed the map that we so carefully dotted
Every day we're dumping a body, she and me, every single day
And we'd laugh about it

That's when I knew it was time that we both kill ourselves, together
Together we were nothing but a menace, apart we were nothing but lonely
I read too much, I thought we should kill ourselves
She doesn't read a thing, she believed me
"Are you really the Messiah?" "Yes I am"
She was younger than me, and I said to her, I said
"You know Pauline, no one stamps on a burning bag of shit anymore, no one"
"Are you really the Messiah?" "Yes I am, believe it"

So we, uh, we opted to kill ourselves, as I said
But we had one rifle, and one bullet
So I told her to put her head down close to the barrel
And put the barrel sort of into her mouth
And I'd be right behind her, with my head right behind hers
And I said "Her life would end instantly"
"Mine might have a few extra minutes of agony and suffering"
She couldn't pull the trigger so we attached a string to it
Around the lamp and to the doorknob
The first person to come into our cheap fucking apartment
Would blow both our heads off
We got, we got thinking, we changed our minds, you know I mean we got scared
And uh, and we kind of chickened out, and we'd laugh, you know, we laughed about it
"What were we thinking? We're not, together, we're not that bad"
"We don't, we're not that bad, we don't need to kill ourselves"
"We don't need to kill ourselves"

And then the D train rattled overhead
Knocked the joor- door ajar, the joor adar, the door ajar, the ajar door, the door ajar
The lock, the faulty lock, the door swung open
And killed her

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it

[Verse]
They said, "don't you think Gord, you push a bit too fast?"
I said "slowing down don't make it last"
And then she said "a memory's never set you free"
Oh, see that world, bring it home to me

[Chorus]
Ah my little highway girl
Ah, please come on home, never get a while for my highway girl
And then when I died, then she buried me, yeah someplace that I really wanted to be
And transport me, promise me, you'll put me and a rock by a shady tree
And you'll get Mr. Ry Cooder to deliver my eulogy, alright?
[Outro]
Thanks, thanks a lot
Paul Langlois, kind of the Kurosawa of the rock and roll world