Arlo Guthrie – The Motorcycle Song (The Significance Of The Pickle) lyrics

I don't want a pickle
I just want to ride on my motor-cicle
And I don't want a tickle
I'd rather ride on my motor-cicle
And I don't want to die
I just want to ride on my motor-cy-cle

You know it's been about 12 years now, that I've been singin' this dumb song
You know it's amazin', it's amazin' that somebody can get away with singin' a song this dumb for that long

But you know, hey you know what's more amazin' than that is that, uh somebody can make a livin' singin' a song this dumb

But that's America.
You know I told everything there was to tell about it
When I wrote it, how come, why, what for
But you know the one thing, that I always used to neglect to explain, was the significance of the pickle

There was a time I was ridin' my bike
I was going down a mountain road
I was doin' 150 miles an hour
On one side of the mountain road there was a mountain
And on the other side, there was nothin'
There was just a cliff in the air
But I wasn't payin' attention you know
I was just driving down the road

All of a sudden by accident
A string broke off my guitar
It broke you know right there
Went flying across the road that way
Wrapped itself around a yield sign
Well the sign didn't break
It didn't come out the ground
And the string stayed wrapped around it
Stayed in the other end of my guitar
Held onto my guitar with one hand
I held onto the bike with the other

I made a sharp turn off the road
Luckily I didn't go into the mountain
I went over the cliff
I was doin' 150 miles an hour sideways
And 500 feet down at the same time
Hey, I was lookin' for the cops
Cuz' you know
Hey I knew that it, it was illegal

Well, I knew that that was it
I knew I didn't have long to live in this world
And in my last remaining seconds in the world
I knew it was my obligation to write one last farewell song to the world

Took out a piece of paper
I pulled out a pen
And it didn't write
I, I had to put another ink cartridge in it
I sat back and I thought a while
And it come to me
It come like a flash
Like a vision burnt across the clouds

I just wrote it down
I learnt it right away

I don't want a pickle
Just want to ride on my motor-cicle
And I don't want a tickle
I'd rather ride on my motor-cicle
And I don't want to die
I just want to ride on my motor-cy-cle

Hey, I, you know
I knew it wasn't the best song I ever wrote
But I didn't have time to change it

But you know the most amazin' thing was that I didn't die
I landed on the top of a police car.... And it died

I come into town, I come into town at a screamin' 175 miles an hour
Singing my new motorcycle song
I stopped out front of the deli
And out in front of the deli was a man eating the most tremendous pickle
A pickle the size of four pregnant watermelons
Just a huge monster pickle

He walked up to me, pushed the pickle in my face and started asking me questions
It was about the same time I noticed the pickle in my face
I noticed a cord hangin' from the long end of the pickle
Goin' up his sleeve down his shirt, into his pants and shoes
Out into a briefcase he had near his feet

I knew it wasn't an ordinary pickle
But it was about the same time I noticed the cord hangin' out of the pickle
That a four foot cop arrived with a five foot gun
A cop that one time musta been around six foot three
But was met at the bottom of a mountain
By a flyin', singin' writin' weirdo freak

He walked up and with one tremendous hand
He grabbed the pickle away from the other guy
He threw it, a hundred feet, straight up in the air
And while the pickle was half way between going up and coming down
He took out his gun and put a three inch bullet hole
Right through the long end of the pickle
It started comin' back down
He stuck out his foot
He caught the pickle on his big toe
And balancing the pickle on his big toe
He reached his huge hand into his little pocket
Pulled out a 10 foot ticket
He borrowed my pen
He wrote it up
Then he rolled it up
And stuffed it in the bullet hole in the middle of the pickle
Took the pickle with the ticket
And shoved it down my throat

It was at that very moment that the pickle with the ticket was goin' down my throat
That I knew for sure that, that I didn't want a pickle

I don't want a pickle
Just want to ride on my motor-cicle
And I don't want a tickle
I'd rather ride on my motor-cicle
And I don't want to die
Just want to ride on my motor-cy-cle