Manafonistas

The door bell rang. To my surprise Randy Newman was standing there, a nice Stetson on his head, and a Cuban cigar in his right hand. I’ve never seen him smoking for years. We knew each other from his time in Düsseldorf. I was totally tired, and he wasn‘ very talkative, too. He just needed a place to rest. He asked me (after some long silences) if he could play something on my piano, and I told him it’s not really well-tuned. It didn’t matter for him, and he started playing „Baltimore“ which was always one of my favourite songs. Single lines lingered through the air: „Hooker on the corner / Waitin‘ for a train / Drunk lyin‘ on the sidewalk / Sleepin‘ in the rain / And they hide their faces / And they hide their eyes / Cause the city’s dyin‘ / And they don’t know why (…)“ The song ended. – Gosh, I said after a while, what a sad and beautiful song. Did you live there, Randy? – I saw photographs, I read about the town’s history. Then the apparition vanished. I woke up in my armchair, turned to my record collection and put on Randy Newman’s „Songbook, Vol. 2“ – only the man and his piano. And one more time I listened to „Baltimore“.