Skip to main content

Ellis Paul

The Storyteller's Suitcase

I packed my storyteller’s suitcase

With a whiskey bottle,

A notebook, and my songs

I met barstool damsels,

Tom cats working a midnight scandal

Take me home,

And brother, trouble will be coming along

If you’re going to ride

This gypsy boxcar

Town to town singing rhymes

Just when you think

you’re gonna lose yourself

you’ll see your name up on a neon sign

(Chorus)

He packed his suitcase

Whoa-oh, The Storyteller’s making the rounds

Oh, He’s never gonna settle down

Motels, hotels,

2am ringing a stranger’s doorbell

Sleeping like Caesar,

Sleeping in an old barnyard

You’ll meet country stars with mini-bars,

Stowaway women

Laying back in your car

Lovers and brothers

Woven in a midnight dream

[Chorus 2]

If you’re gonna ride

on this poet’s highway

Friendships are how you keep score

A song is just a skeleton key

That can open any palace door

[Bridge]

And the towns they roll by

Strangers faces

You come to know by name

‘Cause every year

They come back again

And again

Spotlight, a sold-out night,

Others so empty

You can’t start a fist fight

Then a crowd of angels

Come waltzin’ in the concert hall

It’s a circus life,

You’re a one man bigtop

The barker, the lion, the flames

You fall into a hotel pillow

Just hopin’ they’ll remember your name