Three Flights Up

On the first floor On the first floor On the first floor there's a young girl reeling Her body's numb and without feeling As illusions dance on the midnight ceiling Now she's falling, now she's kneeling It's almost like she's bowed in prayer A savior she's about to bear She screams for help, but no one's there On the first floor On the first floor people walk the halls But none can hear her desperate calls There is no sound beyond the walls So to the telephone she crawls She telephones her only friend The one on whom she can depend But the phone rings on without an end Then rings no more on the first floor There's a party on the second floor And through the picture window you can see them all They're laughing and they're dancing Admiring the Renoir that's hanging on the wall But in the master bedroom where the coats are piled high A silent, saddened lady thinks of what it's like to die And as she dwells on all the years she still has left to face She wonders how she'll ever find someone to take his place Then suddenly she's jarred by the ringing of the phone Oh, why do you ring now, just when I want to be alone? So she walks into the bathroom and drinks some water from a cup But the telephone stops ringing just before she picks it up My family was very poor So I worked hard to be secure I married one I had to wed And not the one I loved instead When I was young my blood ran wild But we stayed married for the child Now three flights up, I'm all alone My wife is dead, my child is grown My daughter leads a wayward life She's been a failure as a wife And though she lives just one floor down She never calls or comes around Step off the platform and onto the train Look out your window and into the rain Watch all the buildings that pass as you ride And count all the stories that go on inside And then ask yourself if it must be this way Should walls and doors and plaster ceilings Separate us from each others' feelings?