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lyrics

On the South Side of town
There’s Catholics drinking beer
At the parish fair
And all the kids are here

Msgr. O’Connor
By the statue of Madonna
Gives a handshake
To a member of his flock

Mr. Austerman
Sits in the front row every Sunday
With a different colored blazer every week
And here he is in his black dress socks
And his red shorts
With a Budweiser in his hand

As he says what an honor
To talk to Hank O’Connor
After he’s been a priest for almost
Fifty years

Mr. Austerman’s granddaughter Tina’s in the seventh grade
And here she is on the ferris wheel with some guy named Dave
WHO’S IN THE EIGHTH GRADE
It’s a scandal with her parents
That her boyfriend’s older
But they don’t seem to care with their hands in each others’
Others’

Now Tina and Dave were doing some things that maybe they shouldn’t have been doing
Seeing that Tina was only in the seventh grade and stuff
I mean, they were going back behind the convent and stuff
And doing some things that, well, the nuns wouldn’t like

I mean,
They were hugging and kissing and necking ‘round the corner (repeat)
When ‘round the corner comes Msgr. O’Connor
Oh!

And so he screamed, “Hey!”
As the kids ran away
And wobbled after them
But the only one he recognized
Was Tina Austerman

So the monsignor thought,
“Hey, they’re only kids,
Maybe I’ll let them go.
Anyway, I’m so tired of being
A disciplinarian”
And he walked and he thought and as he thought some more
His ways just couldn’t change
From the way they’d always been

And so he told
Sister Maureen, the principal
About every single detail
And she was so very quizzical
And so they told Tina’s mom and dad
Who were very very very very mad
When they were told at the bingo table

So they found her by the bike rack
They pulled up the car
They opened the door
And they threw her in the back
You’re grounded forever they said
And you’re never seeing Dave again
Never never never

Well, Tina cried and cried
In her room til’ late that night
She hated being grounded
But mostly she was thinking about her Dave

Til’ she heard a knock on the bedroom window
And she opened It up
And Dave was there on the limb of a tree
Saying, “Won’t you come outside with me?”

And they walked together down the alley
And they looked up at the stars
In the South City sky
They held each others’ hand
Said, “Ain’t it good to be alive?”
Ain’t it good to be alive?

credits

from Love Letters In Latin (25th Anniversary Edition), released June 28, 1996

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Bill Michalski Saint Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, MO songwriter Bill Michalski exorcises his demons in his new EP, CRANKY. By (almost) entirely eschewing the acoustic guitar in favor of electric and working with a crack live rhythm section, Michalski's songs reach a new level of energy. Mr. Michalski has been recording and performing music since his high school days in 1993. CRANKY is his first non-single release since 2013. ... more

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