Chengdu.

Chengdu, Chengdu, Chengdu.
They say your name's really "chung-doo,"
but whatever it is you know i love you.
i love me in you,
i love your big, slow mirror telling me everything's gonna be alright...

isn't that what we all came for, came all this way for
to your streets that harbor everything

isn't travel just seeking out an empty vessel
a blank page a thousand miles wide,
wide as the sky,
wide as we wish our minds could be
but aren't anymore after the harsh hello of adulthood

today in chengdu is finally our stolen moment of Free.
And all day long i've just
walked with the songbirds and i've been
smiling at the little ones with their bums in the air
catching turtles in the pond.

i've been tapping and dancing
to the songs of the old ones with their hair put up
and pearls around their necks
and scuffed up worn out red shoes

i've loved chengdu and it's loved me right back like
fireworks or a waterfall
i've let myself open my arms and
sail off its little cliff

it's been a lovely day in chengdu or
its been a lovely day in Aja
in my eyes the weather's been fine

im strumming a guitar
there's no reason to fear or hope
or wish for anything other than what's at hand

to watch those karaoke women dancing and these men
belting out love songs with
big mouths full of sound.

there's no reason to leave and
nothing better than to sit and drink tea by this lake with the old men fishing
with the willow trees and the mahjong tiles clicking.

today everything rolled and laughed; even the ricksha drivers
seemed slow and placid.

I was a happy camper and hung my laundry piece by timely piece
above the courtyard
i watched the cigarrette smoke and heard the laughter from below
and wasn't it all a mood
wasn't it a glorious day inside my soul
wasn't it as bright as can be

Bright as any day can be.