A kind of Christmas Card (Burning Out Again)

All you folks back home
I'll never tell you this
You're not supposed to know
where your daughter is
There are ways of life
you never understood
it's right here
downtown Hollywood
it's afternoon on Sunset Boulevard
i've got a stolen moment trying hard
to write a kind of christmas card

but I am burning out again
tonight there is fever in my veins

mama, dear
all the love you gave
i guess there's really nothing
nothing much to save
this place is as dirty as I feel myself
there are still some riches
at the Roosevelt
that evening prayer
those memories
in my little bedroom, mama, on my knees
that's where I'm at
down in Los Angeles

And I am burning out again
and I must rise above the shame
tonigh there is fever in my veins

just think of the girl I used to be
you were my age once, mama
twenty-three
i can still hear some of the songs you used to play
from that summer of love in '68
seems it's turned into a winter of hate

and I am burning out again