Doin' business with a tiny man who sells him a ring
Her passport shows a face from
She passes him on the spiral staircase
As the island slowly sank
And I never did plan to go anyway
As the rain beats down and the cranes fly away
Please open up the door!"
He tried to grab the woman's hand
But the desk clerk said, "It happens every day"
As the last ship sails and the moon fades away
From Black Diamond Bay
The desk clerk heard the woman laugh
Then the Greek appears on the second floor
Thinking of forbidden love
As the mornin' light breaks open, the Greek comes down
And as the yellow fog is liftin'
As the fire burns on and the smoke drifts away
Thinkin' he's the Soviet Ambassador
She smiles, walks the other way
Left nothin' but a Panama hat
And the lava flowed down from the mountain high above
The soldier and the tiny man were crouched in the corner
And there's really nothin' anyone can say
She sheds a tear and then begins to pray
"My darling, je vous aime beaucoup"
Said, "Here's a ring, it cost a grand"
As the stars fell down and the fields burned away
She starts to speak, but he walks away
Didn't seem like much was happenin'
Watchin' old Cronkite on the seven o'clock news
She cried, "Help, there's danger near
Another time and place
She knocked upon it anyway
On Black Diamond Bay
As the floor caved in and the boiler in the basement blew
There's another hard-luck story that you're gonna hear
She said, "That ain't enough"
She looks nothin' like that
Where a voice from the gambling room is callin' her to come on in
You'll spend it in the tomb"
You can take your money, but I don't know how
As the storm clouds rise and the palm branches sway
And all the remnants of her recent past
The Greek is quickly headin' for the second floor
So I turned it off and went to grab another beer
Carefully removes his fez
While she's out on the balcony, where a stranger tells her
On Black Diamond Bay
Says, "Open up another deck"
Seems like every time you turn around
Then she ran upstairs to pack her bags
While a horse-drawn taxi waited at the curb
"Pardon, monsieur," the desk clerk says
The loser finally broke the bank in the gambling room
Where a handwritten sign read, "Do not disturb"
The dealer said, "It's too late now
On Black Diamond Bay
"Am I hearin' you right?"
The tiny man bit the soldier's ear
He hung there from the chandelier
And a pair of old Greek shoes
From Black Diamond Bay
Then the volcano erupted
But the dealer says, "Attendez-vous, s'il vous plait"
But the Greek said, "Go away" and he kicked the chair to the floor
As he looked around the aftermath and the soldier got tough
She passed the door that the Greek had locked
Are scattered in the wild wind
She walks across the marble floor
I was sittin' home alone one night in L.A.
From Black Diamond Bay
It seems there was an earthquake that
The desk clerk wakes and begins to shout
And he asks for a rope and a pen that will write
Lightning strikes, the lights blow out
A soldier sits beneath the fan
I've got to talk to someone quick
In his bare feet with a rope around his neck
"Can you see anything?"
As the sun went down and the music did play
While a loser in the gambling room lights up a candle
