Story Behind The Song

I had just moved to Hoboken. And one summer evening I gazed across the water to Manhattan and considered what I had left behind.

Song Description

Haunted lyric supported by a traditional sounding folk melody with a little eastern tinge

Lyrics

Show Me the Restless Heart (Hoboken)
(copyright Mario Vickram Sen - 9 Aug 1989)

1
There?s a tug boat and a wooden barge
That are moored beside the grey stone steps
Where the phantoms of a distant age lie harbored.
By the blue street light, their rust red paint
Complements the tarnished copper green
Of the ferry house that?s been long since barred and shuttered.

And you know that feeling you get, when you recall some touching moment,
Or return to some place you?ve struggled to remember,
In some dim future I can vaguely see, how this feeling, when it comes to me,
Will evoke this scene in sad and tender colors.

Chorus:
Show me the restless heart, of an impossible love,
Always flirting with disaster, which hovers silently above.

2
Well there?s a big commotion down the street,
As they empty out some local bar,
And my thoughts are momentarily distracted.
On a bench, not fifty feet away,
Some teenagers celebrate their youth,
While for me my youthful failures are reenacted.

And you know that feeling you get, when you watch the river dance,
And you see your past revealed in broken patterns,
And as that gentle summer wind raises bumps upon my skin,
I stand gazing across the water toward Manhattan.

Chorus:
Show me the restless heart, of an impossible love,
Always flirting with disaster, which hovers silently above.
Show me the restless heart, that beats so stubborn and so proud,
That sits and suffers in its solitude, but never cries its fear aloud.