THE LADY SINGS THE BLUES

She sang the blues in smokey backstreet bars.
With the voice of an angel she should have been a star.
Fame always eluded her it somehow passed her by.
Sometimes life works out that way but life never tells you why.

Her voice was as smooth as caramel and sounded so sublime.
She sang as if she had lived through each song in every tragic line
The sadness in her eyes was reflected in all her haunting words.
She had the most captivating voice that I have ever heard.

As she sang her heart out to drunks and late night customers who did not care.
But when she sang it was as if it was to me, and I was the only one sitting there.
She still held a look of beauty but the years had not been kind.
As her voice it seemed to speak to me, and it echoed around my mind.

I wanted to rescue her from something if only from herself.
But I was just a face in the audience another drunken someone else.
Her voice it was so haunting like a fabled siren luring lost men at sea.
I was getting drawn to her like a magnet, she had her claws deep into me.

Was I just starstruck with beautiful a singer who'd never got to be a star.
She reminded of a caged tigress trapped inside these late night smoky bars.
I guess we are all prisoners to certain circumstances and the life we chose.
When destiny gets strangled by the hand of fate, then the lady sings the blues.

She looks down at me and smiles my way, it's as if she has just read my mind.
I wanted to call out too her, but the right words I could not find.
She was high up on a pedestal I was on a crooked old bar stool.
Was I being blinded by the limelight and dreaming like a lovesick fool.

Her voice was up there to rival Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin and Etta James.
She should have been playing under the bright lights of Las Vegas but no one knows her name.
In this smokey backroom bar she plies her trade and she sings with all her heart.
Singing the blues too drunken fools, each night she suffers for her art.

I hung onto her every word as her haunting melody drifted to its end.
Without the music to back her up, she looked lost as if in need of a friend.
I offered to buy her a drink for the road but she graciously declined.
She could see I looked a bit embarrassed, then said well maybe one, you are too kind.

So we sat at the little corner table and drank our drinks together.
I asked why she wasn't famous, but she made small talk about the weather.
Then she said she gave up the chance of fame for the love of a man but it was all old news.
I saw a tear well up in her eye but this time she never sang the blues..

I had to ask her did she regret it and I watched in silence as she began to cry.
She said no not for a second, but lovers are like dreams and in the end they die.
Then she said if it wasn't for her lost love she could never truly sing the blues.
That a broken heart is a feeling that you never ever lose.

We shared one drink together but now it was time for us to part.
I sang blues songs as I walked home, as the singer broke my heart.