Dead Movie Stars

She'd been lost on sunset and found in a dumpster
On western avenue
Dead in the manner that the living would never envy
One red shoe missing and the gold dress all ripped up and something weird
Written across her stomach with her own lipstick

She'd been toxic drunk
When she met the guy
With the soft woody harrelson smile
And the homicide eyes
Only beat coke and bike queen amphetamine
Were keeping her vertical
When she accepted
His offer of a hundred
And stepped into his van

Word on the street was the cops had him for two hours
Later the same night on a traffic beef
But they let him go

She'd done a walk-on in married with children
And "900 heat" commercial
So maybe you stretch things
And call her a movie star

But isn't everyone a dead movie star at sunset and western
He couldn't handle the voices in his head no more
The ones who sounded like shelly winters and e. emmett walsh
And all the desperate things they wanted him to do

And on saturday nights,
He would call the tv shrink on the eerie
Late night
Call-in show

He couldn't tell the tv shrink about the voices
And all the dark and terrible things they said

Or even that he was an officer
In the los angeles police department
The tv shrink
Seemed to think
It was something to do
With his wanting to fuck his mother
Bu that wasn't the case at all
And even the fifth of scotch and the forty seconal
Didn't stop the voices
In fact
The sons of bitches kept right on
Talking at him
And talking at him
And talking at him
And talking at him
All the ay to the final fade

Talking at him
About the woman in the gold dress
And the things that he had done to her

E. emmett walsh had wanted him
To blow his brains out in his car
On the freeway
In the rush hour
"you get on tv that way
You'll be a godamned movie star".

But isn't everyone a dead movie star
In a black and white
At sunset and western
At 12th and alvarado
At hollywood and argyle
At selma and ivar
Everyone's a dead movie star