Number One Street (Sides 1 & 2)

Album

Single

Label

RCA Victor

Genre

Spoken Word

Duration

7:00

Composer(s)

Bob Corley

Entered Chart

Nov 19, 1955

Peak Date

Nov 19, 1955

Released

Unknown

Recorded

Unknown

Catalog #

Stars 4773

B-Side

"--"

It is vacation time and we had decided
That we'd go down yonder to Florida
For it, don't you know

Well, everybody told us that we
Ought to go on Number One Street
So we got on to it at Jacksonville

And we had rid long there just a short ways
When I saw this sign that said
Free picnic tables, one mile
So I said, let's stop and get us one

Well, we had an awful time
Getting it into the car
It is made out of, it is made out
Of concrete and all, you Know

It crowded us so that I'd kinda wished
That we had waited until we was
On our way back to picked it up

There's another billboard there
There's all kinds of things to see
If you've ever driven Number One Street
You probably seen em

There's a sign there, big billboard there
It said, Sea Zoo, see a man eating fish
Well, now that didn't interest us cause
We was back here when the college boys
Used to swaller em whole

Bout this time, I was getting a little thirsty
And we rode on down the highway there
And I saw this sign that said, all the
Orange juice that you can drink for a dime
I said, stop the car right here
Florida is fixing to get bankruptured

Well, sir, we stopped there
And I went up to the girl and I says
Is that sign right, all the orange juice
You can drink for a dime
And she says, it sure is

I says, here's my dime
I'd like a glass of orange juice, please
Well, she poured it out there
And I drunk it down, it was good too
And I said, I believe I'd like
Another glass of orange juice

And she said, that'll be another dime
And I said, what do you mean
Your sign there says, all the
Orange juice you can drink for a dime
And she says, well, you had one glass
And that's all you can drink for a dime

They's just a heap of sights down there
That's worth looking at in Florida
One of em was advertised right smart
We kept seeing these billboards that said
See Silver Springs through our glass bottoms

Nothing would do but that we had to go
So we went over there and we rid over
The clearest water while the boat driver
He named off all the springs

They all had purty names
The perry castle, the bridal chamber
All except one and it is called
The bottomless pit

Well, the boat driver, he says, friends
You're looking into the bottomless pit
A spring so deep that no human eye
Can see to the bottom

It upset me when he said that cause I was
Looking all the way to the bottom at the time
And you know what was down there
It is a sign that said, See Rock City

Well, after we left Silver Springs there
We got back on the number one street
And headed on South

Pretty soon, the driver
He stopped the car
And says, we're in Miami
We've run out of land but if you
Wanna sit in the car and wait a while
They'll dredge up some more

And I said, if it's all the same to you
I'd just as leave, go by a boat
You see, we'd hit on this idea
Of a different vacation like
Visiting a foreign land
And we had decided
That we'd go over yonder
To the British island of Nausea

Well, Sir, we got onto this boat
Ship, I believe, the captain called it
The S. S. Queen of Nausea
And we sought sail
That must be what the S. S. Is for
Sought Sail

In no time at all hardly
We's surrounded complete by water
And not a sight of land nowhere
Cept under my fingernails

I had the horrible feeling
That we was lost at sea til I saw
This big fish cork with a bell on it
A ringing and a bobbing like
A whale had tied into the line

Well, I knowed right then
That we wasn't lost
Cause there's a sign on that fish cork
It said, Stuckey's, ten miles

Well, by next morning
We had reached Nausea for sure
So we went on shore to be touristers
We saw the native straw market
Where the natives is making
All kinds of things outta straw
But mostly, they is making money
Out of the touristers

It was all that the travel folders
Said it was and more
Rare, charming, old world, exotic Nausea
Wasn't only exotic, it was expensive

They had a native kind of music there
In the nightclubs that they call Calypso
Them are songs that tell a story
Usually sad

Well, Sir, when they brought the bill
For the evening's entertainment
I felt like writing one of them songs
Right then and there
I was gonna call it, The Tourister's Lament
Or the I Ain't Never Been Calypso

I had heard about the favorable
I had heard about the favorable
Rate of exchange over there for your money
But I found out, it's in their favor

We had what they call, an all expense tour
And it sure was

Well, finally we got back to Miami
Florida, us of A and was getting
Set to go ashore and they told us
That we have to go through a custom

Well, I went and this feller, he said to me
Are you an American citizen, and I said
Look here, I ain't been gone a week hardly yet
And you done forgot that I'm a citizen
Well, I am, thankfully

And he says, what have you got to declare
And I said, I declare I'm broke
And glad to get back

So then he said that we could go ashore
And we went and got in the car and
Headed back up Number One Street
Just as fast as we could go

And friends, I'm telling you
If you ain't never been to Nausea
Don't go, just send your money