What A Shame About Me Lyrics by Steely Dan

What A Shame About Me

I was grinding through my day gig
Stackin cutouts at the strand
When in walks franny from nyu
We were quite an item back then
We talked about her films and shows and cds
And I dont know what else
She said, yeah, hollywoods been good to me
But tell me - how about yourself

[chorus]
Im still working on that novel
But Im just about to quit
cause Im worrying about the future now
Or maybe this is it
Its not all that I thought it would be
What a shame about me

She said, talk to me, do you ever see
Anybody else from our old crew
Bobby dakine won the bunsen prize
Now hes coming out with something new
Alan owns a chain of steamer heavens
And barry is the software king
And somebody told me in the early 80s
You were gonna be the next big thing

[chorus]
Well now that was just a rumor
But I guess Im doin fine
Three weeks out of the rehab
Living one day at a time
Sneaking up on the new century
What a shame about me

What a shame about me
Im thinking of a major jane street sunrise
And the goddess on the fire escape was you

We both ran out of small talk
The connection seemed to go dead
I was about to say, hey, have a nice life
When she touched my hand and said:
You know I just had this great idea
This could be very cool
Why dont we grab a cab to my hotel
And make believe were back at our old school

[chorus]
I said babe you look delicious
And youre standing very close
But like this is lower broadway
And youre talking to a ghost
Take a good look its easy to see
What a shame about me
What a shame about me