He can have any place you would give him,
but please, save Berlin for me.
If I can’t have your love or the warmth of your skin,
give me rights to a place he’s never been.
From the rocking-chair porch of the Atlantic Hotel,
we can pretend we are gray-haired and long-married.
Joints creaking in time with the floorboards,
as we laugh about the years that we’ve carried here today.
It’s really so little to be asking for.
What good is one tiny town?
When he has the run of your mountains and valleys
and can take you the whole world around.
I’m sure he’ll take you the whole world around.
But he won’t bring you gold buttons or ruby-bead jewels
that we’ll find in the junk shops of Berlin.
And the notes that I wrote you from before we were born,
pressed between the Life magazines.
And you might be small, but in the model train shop,
I’ll make you a giant for a day,
and you’ll finally see what I’ve been saying all along,
when you level the little men with a wave.
Isn’t this more than you could ask for?
All this in one tiny town.
We could have the run of it’s bricks and its streetlamps.
Tell me, who needs the whole world around?
Tell me, who needs the whole world around?
We’ve been raised on the movies and wrecked on the movies
where patience is remembered and places are saved.
So don’t meet me at the top of the empire state building
or know me by the painting on my wall,
I hear this used to be a movie town.
I hear this used to be a movie town.
He can have any place you would give him,
but please, save Berlin for me.
If I can’t have your love or or your lips or your skin,
give me rights to a place he’s never been.
Please save Berlin for me
save Berlin for me
Where patience is remembered and places are saved.
I hear this used to be a movie town.
About the Song
“I all but drew a map with this song about Berlin, MD. The Atlantic Hotel, the model train shop … all of it is there, idealic … a real-life movie set. It was a place a boy and I made big plans to visit, but never made it. Written in one sitting at the Jammin Java open mic night with the melody of Richard Shindell’s Fleur De Lis running through my head … it just came pouring out. It’s still a really hard song to perform because it’s letting people in a great deal to something intensely personal.
