He was always dressed in black
Long black jacket, broad black hat
Sometimes a cape
And as thin, and as thin as rubber tape:
Black Max
He would raise that big black hat
To the big shots of the town
Who raised their hats right back
Never knew they were bowing to
Black Max
I'm talking about night in Rotterdam
When the right night people of all the town
Would find what they could
In the night neighborhood of
Black Max
There were women in the windows
With bodies for sale
Dressed in curls like little girls
In little dollhouse jails
When the women walked the street
With the beds upon their backs
Who was lifting up his brim to them?
Black Max!
And there were looks for sale
The art of the smile --
(Only certain people walked that mystery mile:
Artists, charlatans, vaudevillians
Men of mathematics, acrobatics and civilians)
There was knitting-needle music
From a lady organ-grinder
With all her sons behind her
Marco, Vito, Benno
(Was he strong! Though he walked like a woman)
And Carlo, who was five
He must be still alive!
Ah, poor Marco had the syph, and if
You didn't take the terrible cure those days
You went crazy and died and he did
And at the coffin
Before they closed the lid
Who raised his lid?
Black Max!
I was climbing on the train
One day going far away
To the good old U.S.A
When I heard some music
Underneath the tracks
Standing there beneath the bridge
Long black jacket, broad black hat
Playing the harmonica, one hand free
To lift that hat to me:
Black Max
Black Max
Black Max