Another great tune by eddie from ohio, it manages to turn Antony and Cleopatra's story into a blues-filled vein, pumping so fast you have to tap your feet, with a squealing asp of a harmonica against it for local color. Julie's voice cuts through the melody line like a well swung sickle, and the backup vocals from Eddie, Mike, and Robbie make the chorus and the mantra at the end a campfire chant, a ritual, a steel gas pedal on a '64 Chevy beater with Memphis tags.
It appears on their studio album A Juggler on his Blades, and also in an intense live jam version on Portable EFO Show which blends in the old Buddy Holly tune Not Fade Away and an extended mantra at the end. The only thing you could do to make this song not rock would be to not play it.
Lyrics:
Cleo wrote to
Tony:
"Now pull me from this hell!
I'll hock all of my precious jewels
and find a cheap motel.
There's only room for you and me,
the only two who care.
Egyptians and Centurions could kill this perfect pair."
CHORUS:
"Who's watching the
Nile?"
"How far can it be?"
"Not more than a mile,
'til both of us are free!
We'll fool them at the border,
we'll tell them that we're lost;
if bribes are what they order,
we'll pay them what it costs."
Tony wrote to Cleo:
"Now, don't you sell no ring!
I know this perfect getaway
just outside Peking.
We might stick out a little...
let's hope that they won't stare.
Chinamen and Asians won't kill this perfect pair."
CHORUS
Tony picked up Cleo;
He heard someone yell,
"Seezur!"
(seezur.)
Now how you think he means that?
You think, as in, "to seize her"?
or is it one's perception,
and how some Pharaoh sees her?
Turns out a passerby confused
Tony for Julius Caesar!
CHORUS
We'll leave this misery,
and both of us are free.
We'll leave this misery,
and both of us are free.
We'll leave this misery,
and both of us are free.
We'll leave this misery,
and both of us are free.