It was sixteen years ago 
outside an aging movie show
I was found not knowing 
where I was that night
Not a thing did I possess 
but an old blue gingham dress
and a faded photograph
in black and white

Now my memories are quite clear
even if I still can't hear
all the shrinks who said
some trauma was to blame
Light another cigarette
breathe in deep, try to forget
that it's a photograph of Dinah
and that Alice is my name

  chorus:
   Save me, save me,
   I've lost my memory
   I'm outside the world looking in
   Save me, save me,
   I'm lost in the memory
   and I'd swear I'm
   a girl that's never been


Now it's all the life I knew
except I know it can't be true
I'm not her, 
There's no such thing
as Wonderland
hold a steady job somehow
three months clean and sober now
oh, the ways I tried 
to get back there again

Try to move on, don't be sad
so I placed a personal ad
I asked, 
"Why is a raven like
a writing desk?"
And on the phone, out of the past
so glad he's found me now at last
and I'm afraid to go and meet him
but I know my answer's Yes.

   chorus

Just another city loner
wearing sunglasses at night
leather jacket, purple turtleneck
and blue jeans worn to tight
just a rummy by the jukebox
in a casual curious pose
but I don't know how he knows
the things he knows

well, he sits down with a grin
"Why, little Alice, 
where've you been?
Not so little, 
not so Alice now, are you?"
As he sips my untouched drink
I say, "I can't be who I think"
He says, "You are, 
and you're not, and I am, too."

"Are we figments of our gin,
or are we long lost orphan kin
or the mad descendants of 
our writer's pen?
No one's sane behind their mask,
ask what you really want to ask."
so I close my eyes and whisper, 
"Can you take me back again?"


   chorus

"Darling Alice, so bereft,
there is no back, you've never left
All the rhymes are still there
waiting to be sung."
And he holds up in the air
a little picture paper square
slips between my lips
and underneath my tongue

"Shall I tell you now, Miss Liddel,
What's the answer to the riddle
of the raven that you
used to send your call?"
He takes the glasses off to see
yellow cat's eyes turn on me,
and says, "it's nothing like
a writing desk at all."

   chorus

And he faded, leaving nothing
but a grin.