VERSE NOIR (Here’s Looking At You, Kid)

Tell me, have I got this story right –
You know that serpentine story in black and white?
Is there a Big Wheel in moonlight turning
And black midnight oil burning, burning?
Is there a telephone always ringing
And a detective in a tilted hat singing?
Will there be a gunfight
And blood in the night?
I want you to tell me –
Am I right or am I right?

In Club Chicago, the band strike up that play-it-again song.
A girl there wears her gold hair short and her black dress long,
Her eyes sparkle through the smoke;
She rattles the ice in her vodka and coke
And watches a third man coming up behind an old has-been,
In the familiar shadowplay of that played-out scene.
(Well, she already dumped one sap for you, Jack,
Gonna leave you too, she’s a gal don’t look back
And this young dude collects blondes in bottles too.
Hey, your golden girl – she thinks he’s cute).
Outside in the rain, the private eye sees them leave,
His finger on the trigger at the end of his sleeve.
They melt into a cab as the lights go green –
Ain’t this that same old movie, same old scene?
Upstairs, later in a house on West Tenth and Vine
There’s two silhouettes in lamplight, closing the blind.
So, forgive me baby, if I don’t seem too bright
And excuse me while I stroke this ear on the right;
Won’t you tell me, sugar –
Am I right or am I right?

Now a saxophone plays in a monochrome haze
And neon nights dissolve into twilight days.
Over the street, a falcon circles the steeple
While he wonders if the problems of two little people
Amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world,
Where she says she’s still his girl,
Asks him if he’s OK and he says ‘Top of the world’.
He thinks of the shots in the envelope and the piece cold at his side
And he wants to leave with her but he stays frozen inside.
In Technicolor, she whispers, ‘I love you’, he says ‘Ditto’,
And begs her to stay when she says she’s gotta go.
She says she’ll be back but then it’s time for time to fly
And wish each other good luck and goodbye.
But this movie, lady, is shot in black and white
And the screenplay is vague but the timing is tight.
Now, tell me, sweetheart –
Am I right or am I right?

In the fog, the plane engines hum and choke
And he has to get out now or just go for broke.
Though time and distance will drag them apart,
He figures that falcon may yet have a nightingale heart.
She has a lotta class but he don’t know how far she’ll go;
He shrugs, lights a cigarette, guesses he’ll never know.
He catches her wrist and says, ‘You’ll forget where we were, won’tcha,
But you know how to whistle, baby, don’tcha?’
And he don’t think she will but he hopes she just might…
You tell me, kid –
Am I right or am I right?


(1997)


This is one of my personal favourites and needs to be heard in the reader’s head as if Humphrey Bogart is narrating it. I’ve always loved 1940s Film Noir and we’re both fans of Dennis Potter’s TV plays. It did occur to me to add a filmography to this note but I think it will be more fun for people to try and spot the references for themselves.