Old City Bar

I’ve loved the Trans-Siberian Orchestra for years and have listened to their Christmas Eve and Other Stories CD every Christmas season for many years. For some reason today on my way home from visiting with my step-father in North Carolina, this song really touched me like it never had before – maybe I was paying closer attention to the words or maybe because it's Christmas Eve. Please enjoy this performance by  Bart Shatto here .  The words are below. He may be a little out there but his voice is wonderful!


In an old city bar
That is never too far
From the places that gather
The dreams that have been


In the safety of night
With its old neon light
It beckons to strangers
And they always come in


And the snow it was falling
The neon was calling
The music was low
And the night
Christmas Eve


And here was the danger
That even with strangers
Inside of this night
It’s easier to believe


Then the door opened wide
And a child came inside
That no one in the bar
Had seen there before


And he asked did we know
That outside in the snow
That someone was lost
Standing outside our door


Then the bartender gazed
Through the smoke and the haze
Through the window and ice
To a corner street light


Where standing alone
By a broken pay phone
Was a girl the child said
Could no longer get home


And the snow it was falling
The neon was calling
The bartender turned
And said, not that I care
But how would you know this?
The child said I’ve noticed
If one could be home
They’d be already there


Then the bartender came out from behind the bar
And in all of his life he was never that far
And he did something else that he thought no one saw
When he took all the cash from the register drawer


Then he followed the child to the girl across the street
And we watched from the bar as they started to speak
Then he called for a cab and he said J.F.K.
Put the girl in the cab and the cab drove away
And we saw in his hand
That the cash was all gone
From the light that she had
Wished upon


If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last

By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask


Then he looked for the child
But the child wasn’t there
Just the wind and the snow
Waltzing dreams through the air


So he walked back inside
Somehow different I think
For the rest of the night
No one paid for a drink


And the cynics will say
That some neighborhood kid
Wandered in on some bums
In the world where they hid


But they weren’t there
So they couldn’t see
By an old neon star
On that night, Christmas Eve


When the snow it was falling
The neon was calling
And in case you should wonder
In case you should care


Why we’re on our own
Never went home
On that night of all nights
We were already there


Then all at once inside that night
He saw it all so clear
The answer that he sought so long
Had always been so near

It’s every gift that someone gives
Expecting nothing back
It’s every kindness that we do
Each simple little act