Billie crept softly into my waking arms Warm like a sip of sour mash Strange fruit for a sweet hunk of trash Panic at the stage door of Carnegie Hall Famous jazz singer gone AWOL Still left the building, body and soul On a creaky piano stool tonight As the moon is my only witness She was breathing in my ear, "This time it's love" But love is a loaded pistol And by daybreak she's gone Over the frozen river home Me and Johnnie Walker See in the new age alone Stormy weather across the moon tonight Billie, time is a wily trickster Still an echo in my heart says, "This time it's love"