| Maybe it’s just age or a thousand other fears
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| That took me back tonight to my early carnival years
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| I can see the parade a-movin' like the source of the old gulf stream
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| Oh what a lovely dream
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| Adolescent lust was begging for a start
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| As I side-stepped those Brothers with their sacred hearts
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| Yet for those two weeks a year, it was all about sin
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| Folly’s chasin' death, you can count me in
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| There’s a flambeaux man with a gold earring
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| And the cold north wind smells like kerosene
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| Here comes the float of the Carnival Queen
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| I want to wrap her in serpentine
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| Hands up high, eyes open wide
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| «Throw me something mister»
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| That’s why you ride
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| Cracker Jacks with toys inside
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| Real beyond our wildest dreams
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| Floats and masks and a two mule team
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| Some things really are
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| The way they seem
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| Beads and confetti were littering the air
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| When the Queen looked at me with her Ava Gardner stare
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| Though tomorrow would bring ashes and penance by the ton
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| Mardi Gras’s where I learned to have fun
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| There’s a flambeaux man with a gold earring
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| And the cold north wind smells like kerosene
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| I’m still in love with the Carnival Queen
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| I want to wrap her in serpentine
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| Still want to wrap her in serpentine
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| It was the devil |