Ike Johnson was the showman bartender at the bar in the basement of the Southern Turf building on Printer’s Alley (now Skull’s Rainbow Room) in what was then known as the Gentlemen’s Quarter. A bachelor, he lived alone on the third floor. He made sure all of the poor boys selling papers had shoes during the cold winter, he carried drunkards to a bed, he literally “held the curtains” for Congressmen while prostitutes serviced them, and he kept many secrets for Belle Meade businessmen who gambled away thousands of dollars. Just before Prohibition, the building was purchased by the Nashville Banner newspaper. Ike was asked to leave. The paper’s editor visited him late one night in February 1916, the day before the paper was to move in. Ike said, “This life I’ve led, it’s not one to be remembered.” He was found in his apartment the next morning, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The paper ran a beautiful full-page obituary that week, despite Ike’s wishes to disappear into anonymity. Highballs and cocktails would not be officially legal in Nashville again until 1967.
I counted the church spires from the third floor
on the corner there’s a little boy he’s holding the News of the World
I held the curtains for some Congressman
he said your whiskey’s fine but your women no they don’t understand
I held you close until the moon sank far behind
that dirty river that dirty railroad line
and when the ink settles on the light of day
I’ll be just another poet waiting for just another thing to say
I got a pistol from a gypsy
she said she loved it like her silver rings told me lies I’ll never see
I got a Bible and this cigarette
one taught me I should hold on tight one taught me to forget
how I held you close through the alley up the stairs
those dirty hotel walls all those dirty stares
and when you say you’ve got to runaway
I’ll be just another poet waiting for just another thing to say
Ain’t no city for angels
and I pray now how to leave now
how to walk away away
it’s kind of like a ghost town
with a good sound no good found
until you ride away away
I counted on fortunes made in a good war
I took my chances on the lost souls yeah I know what they come here for
made up stories just to please them
said the whiskey’s good enough for waking up above the Cumberland
I held you close on some February night
you said what’s wrong is wrong until you know it’s right
and when the ink settles on an empty page
well I’m just another poet waiting for just another thing to say
Ain’t no city for angels
and I pray now how to leave now
how to walk away away
it’s kind of like a ghost town
with a good sound no good found
until you ride away away
