Lyrics The Smoke Off - Shel Silverstein

The Smoke Off

In the laid back California town of sunny San Raphael
Lived a girl named Pearly Sweetcake you probably knew her well
She’d been stoned fifteen of her eighteen years and the story was widely told
That she could smoke 'em faster than anyone could roll
Her legend finally reached New York that Grove Street walk-up flat
Where dwelt The Calistoga Kid a beatnik from the past
With long browned lightnin' fingers he takes a cultured toke
And says «Hell I can roll 'em faster, Jim, than any chick can smoke»
So a note gets sent to San Raphael for the Championship of the World
The Kid demands a smoke off «Well bring him on!
Says Pearl
«I'll grind his fingers off his hands he’ll roll until he drops»
Says Calistog «I'll smoke that chick till she blows up and pops»
So they rent out Yankee Stadium and the word is quickly spread
Come one come all who walk or crawl price just two lids a head
And from every town and hamlet over land and sea they speed
The world’s greatest dopers with the Worlds greatest weed
Hashishers from Morocco, hemp smokers from Peru
And the Shamnicks from Bagun who puff the deadly Pugaroo
And those who call it Light of Life and those that call it boo
See the dealers and their ladies wearing turquoise lace and leather
See the narcos and the closet smokers puffin all together
From the teenies who smoke legal to the ones who’ve done some time
To the old man who smoked reefer back before it was a crime
And the grand old house that Ruth built is filled with the smoke and cries
Of fifty thousand screaming heads all stoned out of their minds
And they play the national anthem and the crowd lets out a roar
As the spotlight hits The Kid and Pearl ready for their smokin' war
At a table piled up high with grass as high as a mountain peak
Just tops and buds of the rarest flowers not one stem branch or seed
Maui Wowie Panama Red and Acapulco Gold
Kif from East Afghanistan and rare Alaskan Cold
Sticks from Thailand Ganja from the Islands and Bangkok’s Bloomin' Best
And some of that wet imported shit that capsized off Key West
Oaxacan tops and Kenya Bhang and Riviera Fleurs
And that rare Manhatten Silver that grows down in the New York sewers
And there’s bubblin' ice cold lemonade and sweet grapes by the bunches
And there’s Hersheys bars and Oreos incase anybody gets the munchies
And the Calistoga Kid he sneers and Pearley she just grins
And the drums roll low and the crowd yells go and the worlds first Smoke Off
begins
Kid flicks his magic fingers once and zap that first joints rolled
Pearl takes one drag with her mighty lungs and woosh that roach is cold
Then The Kid he rolls his Super Bomb that’d paralyze a moose
And Pearly takes one super hit and slurp that bomb defused
Then he rolls three in just ten seconds and she smokes 'em up in nine
And everybody sits back and says «this just might take some time»
See the blur of flyin fingers see the red coal burnin bright
As the night turns into mornin and the mornin fades to night
And the autumn turns to summer and a whole damn year is gone
But the two still sit on that roach-filled stage smokin' and rollin' on
With tremblin hands he rolls his jays with fingers blue and stiff
She coughs and stares with bloodshot gaze and puffs through blistered lips
And as she reaches out her hand for another stick of gold
The Kid he gasps «Goddamn it, bitch!
there’s nothin' left to roll!»
«Nothin left to roll?!»
screams Pearl, «Is this some twisted joke?
I didn’t come here to fuck around man I come here to smoke»
And she reaches cross the table and grabs his bony sleeves
And she crumbles his body between her hands like dried and brittle leaves
Flickin' out his teeth and bones like useless stems and seeds
And then she rolls him in a Zig Zag and lights him like a roach
And the fastest man with the fastest hands goes up in a puff of smoke
In the laid-back California town of sunny San Raphael
Lives a girl named Pearly Sweetcake you probly know her well
She’s been stoned twenty-one of her twenty-four years and the storys widely told
How she still can smoke 'em faster than anyone can roll
While off in New York City on a street that has no name
There’s the hands of the Calistoga Kid in the Viper Hall of Fame
And underneath his fingers there’s a little golden scroll
That says «Beware of Bein' the Roller When There’s Nothin' Left to Roll»