Diskographie & Lyrics

So there was this woman and
She was on an airplane and
She's flying to meet her fiancé
Sailing high above the largest ocean
On planet Earth and she was seated
Next to this man who you know
She had tried to start a conversation
But really the only thing
She heard him say was to order his Bloody Mary
And she's sitting there and she's reading
This really arduous magazine article about this
Third world country that she couldn't
Even pronounce the name of and
She's feeling very bored and very despondent
And then uh suddenly there's this huge mechanical failure
And one of the engines gave out
And they started just falling thirty thousand feet
And the pilot's on the microphone and he's saying
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Oh My God, I'm Sorry"
And apologizing and she looks at the man and she says
"Where are we going?" and he looks at her and he says
"We're going to a party, it's a birthday party
"It's your birthday party, happy birthday darling
"We love you very, very, very, very, very, very, very much"
And then he starts humming this little tune and it kind of goes like this:

One, Two, One, Two, Three, Four
We must talk in every telephone, get eaten off the web
We must rip out all the epilogues from the books we have read
Into the face of every criminal strapped firmly in a chair
We must stare, we must stare, we must stare

We must take all of the medicines too expensive now to sell
Set fire to the preacher who is promising us hell
And in the ear of every anarchist who sleeps but doesn't dream
We must sing, we must sing, we must sing

And it'll go like this
While my mother waters plants my father loads his gun
He says, "Death will give us back to God
"Just like the setting sun
"is returned to the lonesome ocean"

And then they splashed into the deep blue sea
And it was a wonderful splash

We must blend into the choir, sing ecstatic with the whole
We must memorize nine numbers and deny we have a soul
And in this endless race for property and privilege to be won
We must run, we must run, we must run

We must hang up in the belfry where the bats in moonlight laugh
We must stare into a crystal ball and only see the past
And in the caverns of tomorrow with our flashlights and our love
We must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge

And then we'll get down there
way down to the very bottom of everything
and then we'll see it, we'll see it, we'll see it

Oh my morning's coming back
The whole world's waking up
Oh the city bus is swimming past
I'm happy just because
I found out I am really no one

If you hate the taste of wine
Why do you drink it till you're blind?
And if you swear that there's no truth and who cares
How come you say it like you're right?
Why are you scared to dream of God
When it's salvation that you want?
You see stars that clear have been dead for years
But the idea just lives on
In our wheels that roll around
As we move over the ground
And all day it seems we've been in between
The past and future town

We are nowhere and it's now
We are nowhere and it's now

And like a ten minute dream in the passenger seat
While the world was flying by
You haven't been gone very long
But it feels like a lifetime

I've been sleeping so strange at night
Side effects they don't advertise
I've been sleeping so strange
With a head full of pesticide

I've got no plans and too much time
I feel too restless to unwind
I'm always lost in thought as I walk a block
To my favorite neon sign

Where the waitress looks concerned
But she never says a word
Just turns the juke box on and we hum along
And I smile back at her

And my friend comes after work
When the features start to blur
She says these bars are filled with things that kill
By now you probably should have learned

Did you forget that yellow bird?
How could you forget your yellow bird?
She took a small silver wreath and pinned it onto me
She said this one will bring you love
And I don't know if it's true
But I keep it for good luck

Grey light new day leaks through the window
Some old song comes on the alarm clock radio
We walk the forty blocks to the middle
Of the place we heard that everything would be
And there were barricades to keep us off the street
But the crowd kept pushing forward
Till they swallowed the police
Yeah, they went wild, yeah, they went wild
yeah, they went wild, yeah, they went wild

We left before the dust had time to settle
And all the broken glass swept off the avenue
Ana all the way home held your camera like a bible
Just wishing so bad that it held some kind of truth

And I stood nervous next to you in the dark room
You drop the paper in the water
And it all begins to bloom

Yeah, they go wild, yeah, they go wild
Yeah, they go wild, yeah, they go wild

And just when I get so lonesome I can't speak
I see some flowers on a hillside
Like a wall of new TVs

Yeah, they go wild, yeah, they go wild
Yeah, they go wild, yeah, they go wild
Yeah, they go wild, yeah, they go wild
Yeah, they go wild, yeah, they go wild

I know that it is freezing but I think we have to walk
I keep waving at the taxis they keep turning their lights off
But Julie knows a party at some actor's west side loft
Supplies are endless in the evening by the morning they'll be gone
When everything is lonely I can be my own best friend
I get a coffee and the paper
Have my own conversations with the sidewalk and the pigeons and my window reflection
The mask I polish in the evening by the morning looks like shit
And I know you have a heavy heart
I can feel it when we kiss
So many men stronger than me have throw their backs out trying to lift it
But me I'm not a gamble you can count on me to split
The love I sell you in the evening by the morning won't exist
You're looking skinny like a model with your eyes all painted black
You just keep going to the bathroom always say you'll be right back
Well, it takes one to know one, kid, I think you got it bad
What's so easy in the evening by the morning's such a drag
I got a flask inside my pocket we can share it on the train
And if you promise to stay conscious I will try and do the same
Well we might die from medication but we sure killed all the pain
But what was normal in the evening by the morning seems insane
And I'm not sure what the trouble was that started all of this
The reasons all have run away but the feeling never did
It's not something I would recommend but it is one way to live
Cause what is simple in the moonlight by the morning never is
It was so simple in the moonlight now it's so complicated
It was so simple in the moonlight

You were born inside of a raindrop
I watched you falling to your death
And the sun, well, it could not save you
From falling down to the streets all wet
Body of water, toxic and timeless
Atlantic Ocean, New York skyline
I always get lost when I leave the village
So I couldn't come meet you in Brooklyn last night

But I sing glory from my lowest
And I will say peace to the people I meet
While the world waits for an explosion
That instant of light that wipes the slate clean

So don't be fooled, so don't be lied to
Love was always cruel
And don't act strange, don't be a stranger
It happened to me, now it's happening to you
But if you take that train underwater
Then we could talk it through

Well, if I could tame all of my desires
Wait out the weather that howls in my brain
Because it seems that it's always changing
The winds' indecision, the sorrowful rain

I was a postcard, I was a record
I was a camera until I went blind
Now I'm riding all over this island
Looking for something to open my eyes

We will sing glory from a high rise
And I will say thanks if you're pouring my drinks
While the world waits for an explosion
That moment in time when we are set free

So don't stay mad, just let some time pass
And in the morning you awake feeling new
And if I don't come back
I mean, if I get sidetracked
It's only 'cause I wanted to
Keeping up with the moon on an all night avenue

This is the first day of my life
I swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach

Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
Now I don't know where I am
I don't know where I've been
But I know where I want to go

And so I thought I'd let you know
That these things take forever
I especially am slow
But I realize that I need you
And I wondered if I could come home

Remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning
And I thought it was strange you said everything changed
You felt as if you had just woke up
And you said "this is the first day of my life
"I'm glad I didn't die before I met you
"Now I don't care I could go anywhere with you
"And I'd probably be happy"

So if you want to be with me
With these things there's no telling
We'll just have to wait and see
But I'd rather be working for a paycheck
Then waiting to win the lottery
Besides maybe this time it's different
I mean I really think you'll like me

Well I'm changing all my strings
I'm gonna write another travelin' song
About all the billion highways
And the cities at the break of dawn
I guess the best that I can do now
Is to pretend that I've done nothing wrong
And to dream about a train
That's gonna take me back where I belong

Well now the ocean speaks and spits
And I can hear it from the interstate
And I'm screamin' at my brother on a cellphone
He is far away
And I'm saying nothing in the past or future
Ever will feel like today
Until we're parking in an alley
Just hoping that our shit is safe

So I go back and forth forever All my thoughts they come in pairs Oh I will, I won't, I doubt, I don't, I'm not surprised but I never feel quite prepared Now I'm hunched over a typewriter
I guess you call that paintin' in a cave
And there's a word I can't remember
and a feeling I cannot escape
And now my ashtray's overflowing
I'm still staring at a clean white page
Oh and morning's at my window
She is sending me to bed again

Well I dream the dark on the horizon
I dream the desert where the dead lay down
I dream the prostituted child touching an old man in a fast food crown
I dreamt this ship was sinkin' there were people screaming all around
And I awoke to my alarm clock it was a pop song it was playin' loud

So I will find my fears and face them
Or I will cower like a dog
I will kick and scream or kneel and plead
I will fight like hell to hide that I've given up

If you walk away I'll walk away
Just tell me which road you will take
I don't want to risk our paths crossing someday
So you walk that way, I'll walk this way

The future hangs over our heads
And it moves with each current event
Until it falls all around like a cold steady rain
Just stay in when it's looking this way

And the moon's laying low in the sky
Forcing everything metal to shine
And the sidewalk holds diamonds like a jewelry store case
They argue walk this way, now walk this way

Laura's asleep in my bed
As I'm leaving she wakes up and says
I dreamed you were carried away on the crest of a wave
Baby, don't go away, come here

There's kids playing guns in the street
One's pointing his tree branch at me
So I put my hands up, said Enough is Enough
If you walk away, I'll walk away
Then he shot me dead

I found a liquid cure
For my landlocked blues
It will pass away, like a slow parade
It's leaving, but I don't know how soon

And the world's got me dizzy again
You'd think after 22 years I'd be used to the spin
But it only feels worse when I stay in one place
So I'm always pacing around or walking away

I'm drinking the ink from my pen
And I'm balancing history books up on my head
And it all boils down to one quotable phrase:
If you love something, give it away

A good woman will pick you apart
A box full of suggestions for a possible heart
And you may be offended, and you may be afraid
But don't walk away, don't walk away

We made love on the living room floor
With the noise in the background from a televised war
And in that deafening pleasure I thought I heard someone say
If we walk away, they'll walk away

But greed is a bottomless pit
And all freedom's a joke, we're just taking a piss
And the whole world must watch the sad comic display
If you're still free, start running away
Cos we're coming for you

I've grown tired of holding this pose
I feel more like a stranger each time I come home
So I'm making a deal with the devils of fame
Saying "Let me walk away, please"

You'll be free, child, once you have died
From the shackles of language in measurable time
And then we can trade places, play musical graves
Tell them walk away, walk away, walk away

So I'm up at dawn
Putting on my shoes
I just want to make a clean escape
I'm leaving, but I don't know where to
Yeah, I'm leaving, but I don't know where to

Poison oak, some boyhood bravery
When the telephone was a tin can on a string
And I fell asleep with you still talking to me
You said you weren't afraid to die
In polaroids you were dressed in women's clothes
Were you made ashamed, why'd you lock them in a drawer?
Well, I don't think that I ever loved you more

Than when you turned away, when you slammed the door
When you stole the car and drove towards Mexico
And you wrote bad checks just to fill your arm
I was young enough, I still believed in war

Well let the poets cry themselves to sleep
And all their tearful words will turn back into steam

But me, I'm a single cell on a serpent's tongue
There's a muddy field where a garden was
And I'm glad you got away but I'm still stuck out here
My clothes are soaking wet from your brother's tears

And I never thought this life was possible
You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for

The end of paralysis, I was a statuette
Now I'm drunk as hell on a piano bench
And when I press the keys it all gets reversed
The sound of loneliness makes me happier

The sun came up with no conclusions
Flowers sleeping in their beds
The city cemetery's humming
I'm wide awake, its morning

I have my drugs, I have my woman
They keep away my loneliness
My parents, they have their religion
But sleep in separate houses

I read the body count out of the paper
And now it's written all over my face
No one ever plans to sleep out in the gutter
Sometimes that's just the most comfortable place

So I'm drinking, breathing, writing, singing
Every day I'm on the clock
My mind races with all my longings
But can't keep up with what I've got

And so I hope I dont sound too ungrateful
For what history gave modern man
A telephone to talk to strangers
Machine guns and a camera lens

So when you're asked to fight a war that's over nothing
It's best to join the side that's gonna win
No one's sure how all of this got started
But we're gonna make 'em God damn certain how it's gonna end
Oh yeah we will, oh yeah we will

Well I could have been a famous singer
If I had some one else's voice
But failure's always sounded better
Let's fuck it up boys, make some noise

The sun came up with no conclusions
Flowers sleeping in their beds
The city cemetery's humming
I'm wide awake, it's morning

This is the first day of my life
I swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach

Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
Now I don't know where I am
I don't know where I've been
But I know where I want to go

And so I thought I'd let you know
That these things take forever
I especially am slow
But I realize that I need you
And I wondered if I could come home

Remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning
And I thought it was strange you said everything changed
You felt as if you had just woke up
And you said "this is the first day of my life
"I'm glad I didn't die before I met you
"Now I don't care I could go anywhere with you
"And I'd probably be happy"

So if you want to be with me
With these things there's no telling
We'll just have to wait and see
But I'd rather be working for a paycheck
Then waiting to win the lottery
Besides maybe this time it's different
I mean I really think you'll like me

When the president talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our womens' rights
And send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
Are the consonants all hard or soft?
Is he resolute all down the line?
Is every issue black or white?
Does what God say ever change his mind
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
Does he fake that drawl or merely nod?
Agree which convicts should be killed?
Where prisons should be built and filled?
Which voter fraud must be concealed
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
I wonder which one plays the better cop
We should find some jobs, the ghetto's broke
No, they're lazy, George, I say we don't
Just give 'em more liquor stores and dirty coke
That's what God recommends

When the president talks to God
Do they drink near beer and go play golf
While they pick which countries to invade
Which Muslim souls still can be saved?
I guess God just calls a spade a spade
When the president talks to God

When the president talks to God
Does he ever think that maybe he's not?
That that voice is just inside his head
When he kneels next to the presidential bed
Does he ever smell his own bullshit
When the president talks to God?

I doubt it
I doubt it

I am a blueblood I will admit that
I dance in blue shoes and wear a blue hat
Live in a blue house on a blue street, in a blue town by a blue creek
I write my blue songs with my blue pen
I sing the blue notes to my blue friends
Now I don't know that much about you
But I like you because you are true blue
I had a blue dream about a blue star
In it I drove there in my blue car
And when I got there I met a blue dog with a blue tongue
We had real fun
We bounced a blue ball
It broke a blue glass
We banged on blue drums and called it bluegrass
I guess the thing I'm trying to tell you is that it is best, kid
If you're true blue
Once I had gangrene I had it real bad
And so the Doc came with his black bag
I said "You know doc, I don't feel well
"If you had a blue bag, I think I'd get well"
So he came right back with a blue sack
He said, "Will this do?" I said, "Why not? Yeah"
That is how I am here today to tell you that it is best, man
To be true blue
Out on the blue sea I sailed a blue ship
I had a first mate that always had blue lips
His name was Bluebeard
He had a weird twitch
We flew a blue flag up on a big stick
And we ate bluegill and we ate blue chips
Oh, I felt real blue eating that blue fish
Because there ain't much that I won't do
Unless it keeps me from being true blue
Once in a blue moon there is a blue sky
I wear my blue jeans and fly my blue kite
It hangs like a bluebird until the wind dies
And then the tears pour out of my blue eyes
If it is your birthday we'll bake you a blue cake
And then we'll eat it off my blue plates
Because kid, I don't know much about you
But I like you because you are true blue

There's a voice on the phone telling what had happened
Some kind of confusion, more like a disaster
And it wondered how you were left unaffected
But you had no knowledge, no, the chemicals covered you
And so a jury was formed as more liquor was poured
No need for conviction, they're not thirsting for justice
But I slept with the lies I keep inside my head
I found out I was guilty
I found out I was guilty
But I won't be around for the sentencing
'Cause I'm leaving on the next airplane
And though I know that my actions are impossible to justify
They seem adequite to fill up my time
And if I could talk to myself like I was someone else
Then maybe I could take your advice
And I wouldn't act like such an asshole all the time
There's a film on the wall, makes the people look small
Who are sitting beside it, all consumed in the drama
They must return to their lives once the hero has died
They will drive to the office, stopping somewhere for coffee
Where the folk singers, poets, and playwrites convene
Dispensing their wisdom, oh dear amateur orator
They will detail their pain in some standard refrain
They will recite their sadness like it's some kind of contest
Well if it is, I think I am winning it
All beaming with confidence as I make my final lap
The gold medal gleams, so hang it around my neck
Because I am deserving it, the champion of idiots
But a kid carries his Walkman on that long bus ride to Omaha
I know a girl who cries when she practices violin
'Cause each note sounds so pure, it just cuts into her
And then the melody comes pouring out her eyes
Now to me everything else, it just sounds like a lie

I met you through a common friend
In the attic of my parents' house
And though I didn't know it then
I soon was finding out
Oh, you are the roots that sleep beneath my feet
And hold the earth in place
Each time a faucet opens, words are spoken
The water runs away
And I hear your name
No, nothing has changed
There was this book I read and loved, the story of a ship
Who sailed around the world and found that nothing else exists
Beyond his own two sails, and wooden shell
And what is held within
All else is sure to pass, we clutch and grasp
And debate what's truly permanent
But when the wind starts to shift
Well, there's no argument
Now, I sing and drink and sleep on floors
And try hard not to be annoyed
By all these people worrying about me
So when I'm suffering through some awful drive
You occasionally cross my mind
It's my hidden hope that you are still among them
Well are you?
Oh, you are the roots that sleep beneath my feet
And hold the earth in place
Each time a curtain opens, sunlight pours in
A lifetime melts away
And we share a name
On some picturesque grave

It was in the March of the winter I turned seventeen
That I bought those pills I thought I would need
And I wrote a letter to my family
Said it's not your fault, you've been good to me
It's just lately I've been feeling like I don't belong
Like the ground's not mine to walk upon
And I've heard that music echo through the house
Where my grandmother drank by herself
And I sat watching a flower as it was withering
I was embarassed by its honesty
So I'd prefer to be remembered as a smiling face
Not this fucking wreck that's taken its place
So please forgive what I have done
No, you can't stay mad at the setting sun
Because we all get tired, I mean eventually
There is nothing left to do but sleep
But spring came bearing sunlight, those persuasive rays
So I gave myself a few more days
My salvation it came, quite suddenly
When Justin spoke very plainly
He said "Now, of course it's your decision
But just so you know
If you decide to leave, soon I will follow"
I wrote this for a baby who has yet to be born
My brother's first child, I hope that womb's not too warm
'Cause it's cold out here, and it will be quite a shock
To breathe this air, to discover loss
So I'd like to make some changes before you arrive
So when your new eyes meet mine, they won't see no lies
Just love, just love
I will be pure, like snow, like gold

Love is real
It is not just in novels or the movies
It is fact
And it is standing here right in front of you
So if you open your eyes, oh what a sweet discovery
There is hope, and there is joy, and there is acceptance
So now let all of the light that collects on your plants
Keep you warm, make you smile
And I will be there with this pen in my hand
To record all the while
You'll be laughing so loud that the house would shake with sound
And everything will be as new as the day it was found
Love is real
It is not just in long distance commercials
Or something that you thought you felt back in high school
So I will turn black and white
Become that horoscope you're reading
It predicts something good is on its way
Oh, and then I will send you the world green and blue
In a box through the mail
You can open it up, hold it right in your hand
And be glad that it's there
And be glad that you're there
You can feel all the knots in your stomach start to untie
And suddenly it's not so hard to say you're all right
Love is real
It is not just in poetry and stories
It is truth, and it will follow you
Everywhere you go from now on
So if you'd just cast off your doubt
Then your lips would answer for you
Oh my darling, when you smile, it is like a song
And I can hear it now

You turn on a spindle
You're so much looser now, but you're not explaining how
You gained such new repose
I touch the clasp of your locket, with its picture held
Some secret you wouldn't tell
But let it choke your neck
So imagine a darkness, where all shapes divide, solids changing into light
With a burst of heat so bright
Well fine, don't you do what I want you to
Don't degrade yourself the way I do
Because you don't depend on all the shit that I use
To make my moods improve
Near a sea of pianos, there were waves of chords that crashed against the shore
In one huge and pointless roar
And there were girls bringing water, like a dream they came
To cure the fever of my brain and soothe my burning throat
And they made me a necklace, hanging beads of sweat on a string of my regrets
And placed it round my neck, and they were singing,
"Don't you do what you've wanted to
Yeah, don't destroy yourself like those cowards do
And maybe the sun keeps coming up because it has gotten used to you
And your constant need for proof

Here's a scale, weigh it out and you'll find, easily
More than sufficient doubt that these colors you see were picked in advance
By some careful hand with an absolute concept of beauty
They are smeared and these blurs come in random order
And they color the eyes of your former lovers
Hers were green like July, except when she cried they were red
Now, I know a disease that these doctors can't treat
You contract on the day you accept all you see
Is a mirror, and a mirror is all it can be-
A reflection of something we're missing
And language just happened, it was never planned
And it's inadequate to describe where I am
In the room of my house where the light's never been
Waiting for this day to end
And these clocks keep unwinding and completely ignore
Everything that we hate or adore
Once the page of a calendar is turned it's no more
So tell me then, what was it for?
Oh tell me, what was it for?

Does he kiss your eyelids in the morning when you start to raise your head?
And does he sing to you incessantly from the place between your bed and wall?
Does he walk around all day at school with his feet inside your shoes?
Looking down every few steps to pretend he walks with you?
Oh, does he know that place below your neck that is your favorite to be touched?
And does he cry through broken sentences, like 'I love you far too much'?
Does he lay awake listening to your breath?
Worried that you smoke too many cigarettes?
Is he coughing now on a bathroom floor?
For every speck of tile there's a thousand more
You won't ever see, but must hold inside yourself eternally
Well, I drug your ghost across the country and we plotted out my death
In every city, memories would whisper, 'Here is where you rest'
I was determined in Chicago but I dug my teeth into my knees
And I settled for a telephone and sang into your machine
'You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine'
And I kissed a girl with a broken jaw that her father gave to her
She had eyes bright enough to burn me, they reminded me of yours
And in a story told she was a little girl in a red-rouge, sun-bruised field
And there were rows of ripe tomatoes where a secret was concealed
And it rose like thunder, clapped under our hands
And it stretched for centuries to a diary entry's end where I wrote,
'You make me happy when skies are gray
You make me happy when skies are gray, and gray, and gray'
Well the clock's heart, it hangs inside its open chest
With hands stretched towards the calendar hanging itself
But I will not weep for those dying days
For all the ones who've left there's a few that've stayed
And they found me here and pulled me from the grass where I was laid

Now and again it seems worse than it is
But mostly the view is accurate
You see your breath in the air as you climb up the stairs
To that coffin you call your apartment
And you sink in the chair, brush the snow from your hair
And drink the cold away
And you're not really sure what you're doing this for
But you need something to fill up the days
A few more hours
There's a dream in my brain that just won't go away
It's been stuck there since it came a few nights ago
I'm standing on a bridge in the town where I lived
As a kid with my mom and my brothers
And then the bridge disappears and I'm standing on air with nothing holding me
And I hang like a star, fucking glow in the dark
For all their starving eyes to see
Like the ones we've wished on, but now I'm confused
Is this death really you?
Do these dreams have any meaning?
No, no, I think it's more like a ghost
That's been following us both
Something vague that we're not seeing
Something more like a feeling

You follow the footsteps, echoes leading down a hall
To a room, there's music playing, tiny bells with moving parts
Here the shadows make things ugly, an effect quite undesirable
And the gold and yellow daylight grows like ivy across the wall
And it bounces off of the painted porcelain, a tiny dancing doll
Her body spins, as she pirouettes again, the world suddenly seems small
On an off-white, subtle morning
You stretch your legs in the front seat
And the road has made a vacuum where our voices used to be
And you lay your head onto my shoulder, pour like water over me
So if I just exist for the next ten minutes of this drive that would be fine
And all these trees that line this curb would be rejoicing and alive
Soon all the joy that pours from everything makes fountains of your eyes
Because you finally understand the movement of a hand
Waving good-bye

The fragile keep secrets, gathered in pockets
And they'll sell them for nothing, a cheap watch or locket
That kind of gold washes off
And the sad act like lepers, they stick to the shadows
They long to ring bells of warning to tell of their coming
So that the pure can shut their doors
And the angry are animals, senseless and savage
They act without order in logical lapses
They stain their mouths with blood
So take my hand, this barren land is alive tonight
Oh, the corn has grown stalks that form a wall too high
But the wind carries sounds that I can't see from beyond that line
Then the stalks begin to sway
Oh, stay with me, Arienette, until the wolves are away
Yeah
The wicked are vultures, and they bake in the canyons
They circle in sunlight and wait for their victims
To collapse and call to them
And the desperate are water, they'll run down forever
As they soak into silence and end up together
In a dark and distant, dark and distant place
So don't leave me here, with only mirrors watching me
This house, it holds nothing but the memories
And the moon, it leaves silver but never sleep
And then the sunlight turns to gray
Oh, stay with me, Arienette, until the wolves are away

Tomorrow when I wake up I'm finding my brother
And I'm making him take me back down to the water
That lake where we sailed and we laughed with our father
I will not desert him, I will not desert him
No matter how I may wish for a coffin so clean
Or these trees to undress all their leaves onto me
I'll put my face in the dirt and then finally I'll see
The sky that has been avoiding me
Well, I started this letter, I'm gonna send it to Ruba
It will be blessed by her eyes on the gulf coast of Florida
With her feet in the sand and one hand on her swimsuit
She'll recite the prayer of my pen
Saying, time take us forward
Relief from this longing
They can land that plane on my heart, I don't care
Just give me November, the warmth of a whisper
In the freezing darkness of my room
But no matter what I would do in attempt to replace
All these pills that I take trying to balance my brain
I see the curious girl with that look on her face
So surprised, she stares out from her display case

The phone slips from a loose grip
Words were missed like some apology
I didn't want to tell you this
No, it's just some guy she's been hanging out with
I don't know, the past couple of weeks I guess
Thank you and hang up the phone
Let the funeral start, hear the casket close
Let's pin split-black ribbon to your overcoat
But laughter pours from under doors
In this house, I don't understand that sound no more
It seems artificial, like a T.V. set
Well, haligh, haligh, haligh, haligh
This weight it must be satisfied
You offer only one reply
You know not what you do
As you tear and tear your hair from roots
From that same head you have twice removed now
A lock of hair you said would prove our love would never die
Well ha ha ha
I remember everything, the words we spoke on freezing South street
And all those morning watching you get ready for school
You combed your hair inside that mirror
The one you painted blue and glued with jewelry tears
Something about those bright colors would always make you feel better
But now we speak with ruined tongues and the words we say aren't meant for anyone
It's just a mumbled sentence to a passing acquaintance
But there was once you
You said you hate my suffering and you understood and you'd take care of me
You'd always be there, well where are you now?
Haligh, haligh, haligh, haligh
The plans were never finalized
But left to hang like yarn and twine dangling before my eyes
As you tear and tear your hair from roots
From that same head you have twice removed now
A lock of hair you said would prove our love would never die
And I sing and sing unlawful things, the pleasure that my sadness brings
As my fingers press onto the strings yet another clumsy chord
Haligh, haligh, an awful lie
This weight would now be satisfied
I'm gonna give you only one reply, I know not who I am
But I talk in the mirror to the stranger that appears
Our conversations are circles, always one-sided, nothing is clear
Except we keep coming back to this meaning that I lack
He says the choices were given and now you must live them
Or just not live, but do you want that?

At the center of the world there's a statue of a girl
She is standing near a well with a bucket bare and dry
I went and looked her in the eyes and she turned me into sand
This clumsy form that I despise, it scattered easy in her hand
And came to rest upon a beach, with a million others there
We sat and waited for the sea to stretch out so that we could disappear
Into the endlessness of blue, into the horror of the truth
See, we are far less than we knew
Yeah, we are far less than we knew
But we knew what we could taste
Girls found honey to drench our hands, the men cut marble to mark our graves
Said, we'll need something to remind us of
All the sweetness that has passed through us
(fresh sangria and lemon tea)
The priest dressed children for choir
(white-robed small voices praise Him)
But found no joy in what was sung
The funeral had begun
In the middle of the day when you drive home to your place
From that job that makes you sleep back to the thoughts that keep you awake
Long after night has come to claim any light that still remains
In the corner of the frame that you put around her face
Two pills just weren't enough
The alarm clock's going off, but you're not waking up
This isn't happening, happening, happening, happening, happening
It is

Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset, swiftly go the days
Sunrise, sunset, you wake up, then you undress, it always is the same
A sunrise and a sunset, you are lying while you confess, keep trying to explain
The sunrise and the sun sets, you realize and then you forget
What you have been trying to retain
But everybody knows that it's all about the things that get stuck inside of your head
Like the songs your roommate sings, a vision of her body as she stretches out on your bed
She raised her hands in the air, asked you
"When was the last time you looked in the mirror?
'Cause you've changed, yeah, you've changed"
Sunrise, sunset, you're hopeful, then you regret, the circle never breaks
With a sunrise and sunset there's a change of heart or address, is there nothing that remains?
For a sunrise or a sunset, you're manic or you're depressed, will you ever feel ok?
For a sunrise and a sunset, your lover is an actress, did you really think she'd stay?
For a sunrise or a sunset, you're either coming or you just left
But you're always on the way
Towards a sunrise or a sunset, a scribble or a sonnet, they are really just the same
To the sunrise or the sunset, the master and his servant have exactly the same fate
It's a sunrise and a sunset, from a cradle to a casket, there is no way to escape
The sunrise and the sunset, hold your sadness like a puppet, keep putting on the play
But everything you do is leading to the point where you just won't know what to do
And at the moment you are laughing, there is someone there who will be laughing louder than you
So it's true, the trick is complete
You've become everything you said you never would be
You're a fool, you're a fool
Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset
The sunrise and the sunset, go home to your apartment
Put the cassette in the tape deck and let that fever play
Sunrise, sunset, where are you, Arienette?
Where are you, Arienette?

Did you expect it all to stop at the wave of your hand?
Like the sun's just gonna drop if it's night you demand
Well, in the dark we are just air so the house might dissolve
But once we're gone, who's gonna care if we were ever here at all?
Well, summer's gonna come, it's gonna cloud our eyes again
There's no need to focus when there's nothing that's worth seeing
So we trade liquor for blood in an attempt to tip the scales
I think you lost what you loved in that mess of details
They seemed so important at the time but now you can't even recall
Any of the names, faces, or lines, it's more the feeling of it all
Well, winter's gonna end, I'm gonna clean these veins again
So close to dying that I finally can start living
All right

There's a middle-aged woman, she's dragging her feet
She carries baskets of clothes to a laundromat
While the Mexican children kick rocks into the street
And they laugh in a language I don't understand
But I love them, why do I love them?
The neighborhood's dimming, I smoke on the porch
And watch the people as they pass enclosed inside their cars
On their faces just anger or disappointment
I start wishing there was something I could offer them
A consolation, what could I offer them?
Well, they are sad in their suburbs
Robots water the lawn, and everything they touch gets dusted spotless
So they start to believe they've not touched anything at all
And the cars in the driveway only multiply
They are lost in their houses, I've heard them sing in the shower
Making speeches to their sister on the telephone, saying, You come home
Woman, you come here, don't stay so far away from me
This weather has me wanting love more tangible
Something I can hold 'cause it's getting cold
Let's hold up our fists to the flame in the sky
To block out the light that's reaching for our eyes
Because it would blind us, it will blind us
Now I've locked my actions in the grooves of routine
So I may never be free of this apathy
But I wait for a letter that's coming to me
She sends me pictures of the ocean in an envelope
So there still is hope, yes, I can be healed
There is someone looking for what I've concealed
In my secret drawer, in my pockets deep
You will find the reasons that I can't sleep and you will still want me
But will you still want me?
Come for the week, you can sleep in my bed
And pass through my life like a dream through my head
It will be easy, I'll make it easy
All I have for the moment is a song to pass the time
And a melody to keep me from worrying
Some simple progression to keep my fingers busy
And words that are sure to come back to me, and they will be laughing
My mediocrity, my mediocrity

Radio: Hi, we're back. This is Radio KX and we're here with Conor Oberst of the band Bright Eyes. How are you doing Conor?

Conor: Fine, thanks. Just a little wet

Radio: Oh yeah, it's still coming down out there

Conor: Yeah, I sort of had to run from the car

Radio: Well, we are glad you made it. Now your new album, Fevers and Mirrors. Tell us a little bit about the title. I noticed there was a good deal of repeated imagery in the lyrics, fevers . . . mirrors, scales, clocks. Could you discuss some of this?

Conor: Sure. Let's see, the fever is . . .

Radio: First let me say, that this is a brilliant record, man, we're all really into it here at the station. We get lots of calls, it's really good stuff

Conor: Thanks, thanks a lot

Radio: So talk a little bit about some of the symbolism

Conor: The fever?

Radio: Sure

Conor: Well the fever is basically whatever ails you or oppresses you, it could be anything. In my case it's my neurosis, my depression, but I don't want to be limited to that. It's certainly different for different people. It's whatever keeps you up at night

Radio: I see

Conor: And then the mirror is like, as you might have guessed, self-examination or reflection or whatever form. This could be vanity or self-loathing. I don't know, I'm guilty of both

Radio: That's interesting. How about the scale?

Conor: The scale is essentially our attempt to solve our problems quantitatively through logic or rationalization. In my opinion it's often fruitless, but always, well, not always. And the clocks and calendars, etcetera, its just time, our little measurements. It's like, it's always chasing after us

Radio: It is, it is. How about this Arienette, how does she fit in to all of this?

Conor: I'd prefer not talk about it, in case she's listening

Radio: Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize she was a real person

Conor: She's not, but I made her up

Radio: Oh, so she's not real?

Conor: Just as real as you or I

Radio: I don't think I understand

Conor: Neither do I, but after I grow up I will. I mean, you know what, a lot of things are really unclear for me right now

Radio: That's interesting. Now you mentioned your depression

Conor: No I didn't

Radio: You're from Nebraska, right?

Conor: Yeah, that's right

Radio: Now let me know if I'm getting to personal, but there seems to be a pretty dark past back there somewhere. What was it like for you growing up?

Conor: Dark? Not really. Actually I had a great childhood. My parents were wonderful. I went to a Catholic school. They have, I had money, so it was all easy. I basically had everything that I wanted anytime

Radio: Really? So some of the references like babies in bathtubs are not biographical?

Conor: Well I did have a brother who died in a bathtub . . . he drowned. Well actually I had five brothers that drowned

Radio: (Chuckle)

Conor: No, I'm serious. My mother drowned one every year for five consecutive years. They were all named Padraic, and that's why they only got one song. It's kind of like walking out a door and discovering that it's a window

Radio: But your music is certainly very personal

Conor: Of course, I put a lot of myself into what I do. It's like being an author, you have to free yourself to use symbolism and allegory to meet your goal. And part of that is compassion, empathy for other people and their situations. Some of what I sing about comes from other people's experiences. It shouldn't matter, the message is intended to be universal

Radio: I see what you mean

Conor: Could you make that sound stop, please?

Radio: Yes. And your goal?

Conor: I don't know. Create feelings I guess. A song never ends up the way you planned it

Radio: That's funny you'd say that, do you think that . . .

Conor: Do you ever hear things that aren't really there?

Radio: I'm sorry, what?

Conor: Never mind. How long have you worked at this station?

Radio: Oh, just a few minutes. Now you mentioned empathy for others. Would you say that that motivates you to make the music that you make?

Conor: No, not really. It's more a need for sympathy. I want people to feel sorry for me. I like to feel the burn of the audience's eyes on me when I'm revealing all my darkest secrets into the microphone. When I was a kid I used to carry a safety pin around with me every where I went in my pocket, and when people weren't paying enough attention to me, I'd dig it into my arm until I started crying. Everyone would stop what they were doing and ask me what was the matter. I guess, I guess I kind of liked that

Radio: Really, you're telling me that you're doing all of this for attention?

Conor: No, I hate it when people look at me, I get nauseous. In fact, I could care less what people think about me. Do you feel that?

Radio: No, I feel sick

Conor: I really just want to be this warm yellow light that pours over everyone that I love

Radio: So you're going to play something for us now? Is this a new song?

Conor: Yeah, but I haven't written it yet. It's one I've been meaning to write called A Song To Pass The Time

Radio: Oh, that's a nice title

Conor: You should write your own scripts

Radio: Yeah, I know

The picture's far too big to look at kid, your eyes won't open wide enough
And you're constantly surrounded by the swirling stream of what is and what was
Well, we've all made our predictions but the truth still isn't out
But if you wanna see the future, go and stare into a cloud
And keep trying to find your way out through that maze of memories
It all sorta looks familiar till you get up close then it's different clearly
But each time you turn a corner
You're right back where you were
And your only hope is that forgetting might make a door appear
Is it your fear of being buried that makes you so afraid to speak?
An avalanche of opinions like the one that fell that I'm now underneath
It was my voice that moved the first rock and I would do it all again
I mean, it's cool if you keep quiet but I like singing
So I'll be holding my note and stomping and strumming and feeling so very lucky
And there is nothing I know except a lifetime's one moment and wishing will just leave you empty
So you can try to live in darkness but you will never shake the light
No, it will greet you every morning, make you more aware with its absence at night
When you're wrapped up in your blankets, baby, that comfortable cocoon
But I've seen the day of your awakening, boy, and it's coming soon
So go ahead and lose yourself in liquor and you can praise the clouded mind
But it isn't what you're thinking, no, it's the course of history, your position in line
You're just a piece of the puzzle, so I think you'd better find your place
And don't go blaming your knowledge on some fruit you ate
'Cause there's been a great deal of discussion, yes, about the properties of man
I mean, animal or angel, you were carved from bone but your heart is just sand
And the wind is gonna scatter it and cover everything with love
So if it makes you happy then keep kneeling, but I'm standing up
Because this veil it has been lifted, yes, my eyes are wet with clarity
I've been a witness to such wonders, yes, I have searched for them all across this country
But I think I'll be returning now to the town where I was born
And I understand you must keep moving, friend, but I'm headed home
Yeah, I'm gonna follow the road and let the scenery sweeping by easily enter my body
I will send this message in code, underground, through forests and deserts and cities
All across electric wire, it's a baited line, yeah the hook's in deep, boys, there's no more time
So you can struggle in the water, be too stubborn to die
Or you can just let go and be lifted to the sky

There's no beginning to the story
A bookshelf sinks into the sand
And a language learned and forgot in turn
Is studied once again
It's a shocking bit of footage
Viewed from a shitty tv screen
You can squint at it
Just snow and static
To make out the meaning
And keep on stretching the antenna
Hoping that it will come clear
We need some reception
A higher message
Just tell us what to fear
'Cause I don't know what tomorrow brings
To light with such possibilities
All I know is I feel better when I sing
Burdens are lifted from me
That's my voice rising

So Michael please keep the tape rolling
Boys keep strumming those guitars
We need a record of our failures
Yes we must document our love
I have sat too long in my silence
I have grown too old in my pain
To shed this skin
Be born again
Oh it starts with an ending
So thank you friends for the time we shared
My love stays with you like sunlight and air
No I truly wish I could keep hanging around here
My joy is covering me
Soon I will disappear

It's not a movie
No private screening
This method acting
Well I call it living
It's like a fountain
A door has opened
We have a problem
With no solution but to love
And to be loved
So I've made peace with the fallen leaves
I see their same fate in my own body
But I won't be frightened when I'm awoken from this dream
And return to that which gave birth to me
Gave birth to me gave birth to me gave birth to me
And the story goes and the story goes
And it goes on and on and on and on
It's going on and on and on and on

On a string
On a string
on a string
I was held
The way I moved, can't you tell
My actions are orchestrated from above
And so I swing and I'll sway
Wave my hand, kick my leg
And it's always right with the music
(katie and tiffany: till all that swaying starts to make you sad)
For a song, I was bought
Now I lie, when I talk
With a careful eye on the cue card
Onto a stage, I was pushed
With my sorrow well rehearsed
So give me all your pity and your money now
All of it
(katie and tiffany: we used to think that sound was something pure)
But if I could act like this was my real life
And not some cage where I was placed
Well then I could tell you
The truth like I used to
And not be afraid of sounding fake
Not while all you were listening for was the mistakes
(katie: sorry!)
It's alright
One, two, three!
One, two, three!
In a house by myself
I hear the ice start to melt
And I watched the rooftops weep for the sunlight
And I know what must change
Fuck my face, fuck my name
They are brief and false advertisements
For a soul, I don't have
Something true I have lacked
I spent my whole life trying to make up for it
But I found, in a song
And I'll repeat
It will lift me up out of darkness
And now my door
It stands open, I'm inviting all of you in
We're gonna laugh, we're gonna drink
Until the morning comes
That's what we're gonna do!
Come on!
Come on!

Well, you say that I treat you like a book on a shelf
I don't take you out that often
'Cause I know that I completed you
And that's why you are here
That's the reason you stay here
How awful that must feel
You said you'd be my dream
I could have you every night
And if by morning I'd forgotten you
Well, no big deal, that'd be all right
'Cause you're the re-occuring kind
You are the re-occuring kind
You never really leave my mind
Are you the love of my lifetime
'Cause there's been times I've had my doubts
We were just kids when I first kissed you
In the attic of my parents' house
And I wish we were there now
I took so long to figure out
What this book has been about
Now I write when I'm away
Letters that you'll never read
You said 'Go explore those other women
The geography of their bodies
But there's just one map you'll need
You're a boomerang you'll see
You will return to me
Yeah you will you will you will'
Well, if you don't think this book's all lies
If you don't think my plans would all be ruined
I'll start drinking like the way I drank before
And I just won't have a future anymore

I picked you out
Of a crowd to talk to you
Said I liked your shoes
You said thanks can I follow you?
So it's up the stairs
And out of view
No prying eyes
I poured some wine
I asked your name you asked the time
Well it's two o'clock
Yeah the club is closed we're up the block
Your hands on me
Pressing hard against your jeans
Your tongue in my mouth
Trying to keep the words from coming out
You didn't care to know
Who else may have been here before
I want a lover I don't have to love
I want a girl who's to sad to give a fuck
Where's the kid with the chemicals?
I thought he said he'd meet us here but I'm not sure
I got the money if you got the time
He said it feels good I said I'll give it a try
Then my mind went dark
We both forgot where your car was parked
Let's just take the train
I'll meet up with the band in the morning
Bad actors with bad habits
Some sad singers
They just play tragic
Now the phone's ringing
And the band's leaving
Let's just keep touching
Let's just keep keep singing
I want a lover I don't have to love
I want a boy who's so drunk he doesn't talk
Where's the kid with the chemicals
I got a hunger and I can't seem to get full
I need some meaning I can memorize
The kind I have always seems to slip my mind
But you but you
You write such pretty words
But life's no story book
Love is an excuse to get hurt
And to hurt
Do you like to hurt?
'Cause I do I do I do
This didn't hurt me
Didn't hurt me
Oh this hurt me

The rain it started tappin'
On the window near my bed
There was a loophole in my dreamin'
So I got out of it
And to my surprise my eyes were wide and already open
Just my nightstand and my dresser
Where those nightmares had just been
So I dressed myself and left then
Out into the gray streets
But everything seemed different
And completely new to me
The sky the trees, houses, buildings, even my own body
And each person I encountered
I couldn't wait to meet
And I came upon a doctor
Who appeared in quite poor health
I said there's nothing I can do for you that you can't do for yourself
He said oh yes you can, just hold my hand, so I sat with him awhile
Then I asked him how he felt
He said I think I'm cured
No, in fact, I'm sure of it
Thank you, stranger
For your therapeutic smile
So that's how I learned the lesson
That everyone's alone
And your eyes must do some raining
If you're ever gonna grow
And when crying don't help
You can't compose yourself
It's best to compose a poem
An honest verse of longing
Or a simple song of hope
That's why I'm singing baby don't worry
'Cause now I got your back
And every time you feel like crying
I'm gonna try and make you laugh
And if I can't
If it just hurts too bad
Then we'll wait for it to pass
And I will keep you company for those days so long and black
And we'll keep working on the problem
We know we'll never solve
Our love's un-even remainders
Our lives are fractions of a whole
But if the world could remain within a frame
Like a painting on a wall
Then I think we'd see the beauty then
We'd stand staring in awe
At our still lives posed
Like a bowl of oranges
Like a story told
By the fault-lines in the soil

Is it true what they say about the son of God?
Did he come for us or did he come at all?
And if I washed his feet with my dirty hair would he make me cleanagain?

Well, they don't know when but a day's gonna come
When there won't be a moon and there won't be a sun
It's gonna all go black, it's gonna all go back
To the way it was before

I knew a lovely girl with such pretty pride
Every man wanted her, yeah, and so did I, yeah, and so did I
But she up and died in a fit of vanity

Now men with purple hearts carry silver guns and they'llkill a man for what his father's done
But what my father did, no, it don't mean shit, I'm not him

But still it's hard to ignore all the news reports
That say we must defend ourselves and fight on foreign soil against the infidels with the oil wells
God saves gas prices

You think I need some discipline well, I've had my share
I've been sent to my room and I've sat in a chair
I held my tongue, I didn't plug my ears, no, I had a good talking to

And I don't know why, but I still try to smile when they talk at me like I'm just a child
But I'm not a child, even though I am much younger than that[them?]

Well, I've read some books and I've grown quite brave
If I could just speak up I think that I would say that there is no truth
No, there is only you and what you make the truth

So, I'll sing some songs and I'll pass a hat
And I'll leave your town and I'll never look back
No, I won't look back 'cause the road is clear and laid out ahead of me

When I get home I'll meet my friends at our favorite bar
We'll get some lighter heads for our heavy hearts
Yeah, we'll share a drink, we will share our fears
And they will know how I love them
Yeah, they will know how I love, they will know how I love them
I'm nothing without their love

Well, they don't know when but a day's gonna come
When there won't be a moon and there won't be a sun
It's gonna just go black, it's gonna just go back to the way it's supposed to be

Is it true what they say about the son of God?
Did he die for us or did he die at all?
If I sold my soul, for a bag of gold to you which one of us would be the foolish one?
Which one of us would be the fool? Which one of us would bethe foolish one?

Could you please start explaining? I think I need some understanding
Could you please start explaining? You know I need some understanding
Could you please start explaining? You know I wanna understand

Well the future's got me worried
Such awful thoughts
My head's a carousel of pictures
The spinning never stops
I just want someone to walk in front
And not follow the leader
Like when I fell under the weight of a schoolboy crush
Started carrying her books and doing lots of drugs
I almost forgot who I was
But I came to my senses
Now I'm trying to be assertive
I'm making plans
Gonna rise to the occasion yeah
Meet all their demands
But all I do is just lay in bed
And hide under the covers
Yeah I know I should be brave
But i'm just too afraid of all this change
And it's too hard to focus through all this doubt
I keep making these to-do lists but nothing gets crossed out
Working on the record seems pointless now
When the world ends who's gonna hear it?
But I'm trying to take some comfort in written words
Yeah, Tim, I heard your album and it's better than good
When we get off tour I think we should
Hang and black out together
'Cause I been feeling sentimental for days gone by
All the summers singing, drinking, my friend
Wasting our time
Remember all the songs and the way we smiled
In those basements made of music
But now I've got to crawl to get anywhere at all
I'm not as strong as I thought

So when I'm lost in a crowd
I hope that you'll pick me out
How I long to be found
The grass grew high, I laid down
Now I'm waiting for a hand
To lift me up, help me stand
I've been laying so low
Don't wanna lay here no more
Don't wanna lay here no more

Everything that happens is supposed to be
And it's all predetermined can't change your destiny
Guess I'll just keep moving
Someday maybe I'll get to where I'm going

Our love is dead but without limit
Like the surface of the moon
Or the land between here and the mountains
It is not these hiding places that have kept us innocent
But the way you taught me to just let it all go back
So we learn to be as faithless
Stand behind bulletproof glass
Exchanging our affections through a drawer
It was always horribly convenient and happening too fast
You should count your change before you're even out the door
Well, yes you should, but please return, return
To the person that you were, and I will do the same
'Cause it's too hard to belong to someone who is gone
My compass spins, but wilderness remains
Once too often I've retreated into the depths of my despair
I built a barricade to block you on the road
But standing there with all of my possessions piled higher than a house
I felt closer to you than you ever would have known
So let's let all these tiny acts of charity become ground on which tobuild
A monument to commemorate our time
And though you say you've found another who will surely speed you on your way
Don't let the forest grow over that path you came there by
But you will, so, so hurry up and run to the one that you love
And blind him with your kindness
And he'll make war, oh, war, on who you were before
And claim all that has spoiled in your heart
But now I tell myself I've mended under these patches of blue sky
There's still a few holes that let in a little rain
And so it's crying on my shingles
My floorboards moan under my feet
The refrigerator's whining so I've got reason to complain
But I'm not gonna bless you with such compliments
Some degrading song of praise
Like the kind that converted you to me so long ago
Because the truth is that gossip's as good as gospel in this town
You can save face but you won't ever save your soul
And that's a fact so, so hurry up and run to the one that you love
And blind him in your likeness
And he'll become, become, oh, the prisoner I was
And know all that has spoiled in your heart
Yeah, he'll know it all
He'll know all that has spoiled in your heart
so hurry up and run to the one that you love
And blind him with your kindness
And he'll make war, oh, war, on who you were before
And claim all that has spoiled in your heart

I have a friend, he's mostly made of pain
He wakes up, drives to work and straight back home again
He once cut one of my nightmares out of paper
I thought it was beautiful, I put it on a record cover
And I tried to tell him that he had a sense
Of color and composition so magnificent
And he said thank you, please, but your flattery
It is truly not becoming me
Your eyes are poor, you're blind, you see
No beauty ever could have come from me
I'm a waste
Of breath, of space, of time

I knew a woman she was dignified and true
Her love for her man was one of her many virtues
Until one day she found out that he had lied
And decided the rest of her life from that point on would be a lie
She was grateful for everything that had happened
And she was anxious for all that would come next
But then she wept, what did you expect
In that big old house with the cars she kept
Such is life, she often said
With one day leading to the next
You get a little closer to your death
Which was fine with her, she never got upset
And with all the days she may have left
She would never clean another mess
Or fold his shirts, or look her best
She was free
To waste away alone

Last night my brother, he got drunk and drove
And this cop, he pulled him off to the side of the road
And he said officer, officer, you've got the wrong man
No, no, I'm a student of medicine, a son of a banker, you don't understand
The cop said No one got hurt, you should be thankful
And your carelessness, it is something awful
And no I can't just let you go
And though your father's name is known
Your decisions now are yours alone
You're nothing but a stepping stone on a path
To debt, to loss, to shame

The last few months I've been living with this couple
Yeah, you know the kind who buy everything in doubles
Yeah, they fit together like a puzzle
I love their love and I am thankful
That someone actually receives the prize that was promised
By all those fairy tales that drugged us
And still to me I'm sick, lonely
No laurel tree, just green envy
Will my number come up eventually
Like love's some kind of lottery
Where you scratch and see what's underneath
It's sorry
Just one cherry
I'll play again, get lucky

So now I hang out down by the train's depot
No, I don't ride, I just sit and watch the people there
They remind me of wind-up cars in motion
They way they spin and turn and jockey for positions
And I wanna scream out that it all is nonsense
Their life's one track and can't they see it's pointless?
But just then my knees give under me
My head feels weak and suddenly
It's clear to see, it's not them, but me
Who's lost my self-identity
And I hide behind these books I read
While scribbling my poetry
Like art could save a wretch like me
With some ideal ideology
That no one could hope to achieve
And I'm never real, it's just a sketch of me
And everything I've made is trite and cheap and a waste
Of paint
Of tape
Of time

So I park my car down by the cathedral
Where the floodlights point up at the steeples
Choir practice is filling up with people
I hear the sound escaping as an echo
Sloping off the ceiling at an angle
When the voices blend they sound like angels
I hope there's some room still in the middle
But when lift my voice up now to reach them
The range is too high way up in heaven
So I hold my tongue, forget the song
Tie my shoes, start walking off
And try to just keep moving on
With my broken heart and my absent god
And I have no faith but it's all I want
To be loved
And believe
In my soul, in my soul

There is a man holding a megaphone, so he must have been the voice of God
The bystanders claimed they saw angels flying up and down the block
Well, they must have been attached to wires
I saw one laying in the lawn with a broken arm, so I called 911
So that is one less founded opinion
One more cause for a dispute
So the street filled like a basin up with cameras and their crews
And they washed away the rumors leaving just the concrete truth
It was a spectacle
No, I mean a miracle
So then I fell like that girl from a balance beam
A gymnasium of eyes were all holding on to me
I lifted one foot to cross the other and I felt myself slipping
It was a small mistake
Sometimes that is all it takes

Now I'm staring at my wrist hoping that the timing is right
When the planets will align
There will be no planets to align
Just the carcass of the sun and those little painted marbles spinning senseless through an endless, black sky

(and so it never started and it will never stop just like I am and you are)

It was in a foreign hotel's bathtub I baptized myself in change
And one by one I drowned all of the people I had been
I emerged to find the parallels were fewer
I was cleansed
I looked in the mirror and someone new was there
Still I was as helpless as a chess piece when I was lifted up by someone's hand
And delivered from the corner my enemies had got me in
But in all of my salvation I still felt imprisoned inside that holding cell that is myself
So I wait for the day when I'll hear the key as it turns in the lock and the guard will say to me
"Oh my patient prisoner you have waited for this and finally... you are free! You are free! You are freezing"

Now I'm staring at the sun waiting for it to explode
Because a day is gonna come, don't know when but it will come
And then we will finally know the way out of here
And I will throw away this wrinkled map and my chart of stars and compass, cracked
And I'll climb that tree all wet with sap to avoid the hungry beasts below
I'll cut out my lover's tongue and sign of graveyard gray and a garden green and then we won't have worry no more
No, we won't ever worry again about how this song or story ends
About how this song and story will end

Laura, are you still living there
On your estate of sorrows
You used to leave it occasionally
But now you don't even bother
To ride that commuter train, west to Chicago
To stroll through the greenery in the park past the statues
How their eyes seemed to follow you like a hated addiction
Their beauty carved out of absolutes that you could never claim
Or even envision
Laura, you were the saddest song
In the shape of a woman
Yeah, I thought you were beautiful
But I wept with your movements
But I hope that you're laughing now from that place on the carpet
Where we shared a sleeping bag in your sister's apartment
Oh, how she would worry so
You know, I was just a stranger
But she asked me to care for you, yes she did
And I went and betrayed her
But do you know we're in high demand, Laura, us people who suffer
Because we don't take to arguing
And we're quick to surrender
Well, I think I would call tonight if I still had your number
Your thoughts have always lain close to mine
Yeah, we were both skipping supper
But you should never be embarrassed by your trouble with living
'Cause it's the ones with the sorest throats, Laura
Who have done the most singing
Everybody
Lalalala...

Well the animals laugh from the dark of the wilderness
A baby cries hard in an apartment complex
As I pass in a car
Buried under the influence
The city's driving me out of my mind
I've seen a child getting caught in that sad trap of gravity
He falls from the lowest branch of the apple tree
And lands in the grass, and weeps for his dignity
Next time he will not aim so high
Yeah next time neither will I

Now my mother takes loans out
Sends her kids off to colleges
Her family's reduced to names on a shopping list
Well a coroner kneels beneath a great wooden crucifix
He goes, 'there are worse things than being alone'
And so I've learned to retreat at the first sign of danger
I mean why wait around, if it's just to surrender
And ambition, I've found, can lead only to failure
I do not read the reviews
No, I am not singing for you

Well I stood dropping a coin into the pit of a well
And I would throw my whole billfold if I thought it would help
With all these wishes I make, I should buy something real
At least a telephone, call home
Well my teachers they build this retaining wall of memory
All those bold, simple choices I answer so fluently
And got my grades back, and forgot just as easily
But at least I got an A
So I don't have them to blame
So I should stop pointing fingers
Reserve my judgement of all those public action figures
They count their presidents
So loud behind the bullhorn
So proud they can't admit
They may have made a mistake
Well-poisoning excuse from a speechwriter's pen
He knows he don't have to say it so it don't bother him
Honesty, accuracy, they're just popular opinion
The approval rating's high
Yeah so someone's gonna die
ABC, NBC, CBS bullshit
They give us fact or fiction and we can't even split
And each stupid act of war is tonight's entertainment
We're still pawns in their game
As they take eye for an eye, until no one can see
And we will stumble blindly forth, repeating history
Why can't we all be as useful on that flat-screen marquee
Blood red and white skin knowing the blues
Oh yeah the blues I got the blues
That's me

Well I awoke in relief
All my sheets and tubes were entangled
Weak from whiskey and pills in a Chicago hospital
And my father was there, in a chair by the window
Staring so far away
And I tried talking, just whispered, "so sorry, so selfish."
He stopped me and said, 'Child, I love you regardless
'And there is nothing you could do that would ever change this
'I'm not angry, it happens, but you just can't do it again'
So now I try to keep up
I've been exchanging my currency
One million objects pass through my periphery
And I'm rubbing my eyes, cause they're starting to bother me
I've been staring too long at the screen
But where was it when I first heard that sweet sound of humility
It came to my ears in the goddamn loveliest melody
How grateful I was then to be part of the mystery
To love and to be loved
Let's just hope that is enough

I dreamt of a fever, one that would cure me of this cold, winter-set heart
With heat to melt these frozen tears, burned with reasons as to carry on
Into these twisted months I plunge without a light to follow
But I swear that I would follow anything
Just get me out of here
But you get six months to adapt, and you get two more to leave town
And in the event that you do adapt, we still might not want you around
But I fell for the promise of a life with a purpose
But I know that that's impossible now
And so I drink to stay warm, and to kill selected memories
'Cause I just can't think anymore about that, or about her tonight
I give myself three days to feel better
Or else I swear I'm driving off a fucking cliff
'Cause if I can't make myself feel better
How can I expect anyone else to give a shit?
And I scream for the sunlight, or a car to take me anywhere
Just get me past this dead and eternal snow
'Cause I swear that I'm dying, slowly but it's happening
And if the perfect spring is waiting somewhere
Just take me there, and lie to me and say it's gonna be all right
It's gonna be all right, yeah you worry too much kid
It's gonna be all right

I had a brother once
He drowned in a bathtub before he'd ever learned how to talk
And I don't know what his name was but my mother does, I heard her say it once
Padraic my prince, I have all but died from the sheer weight of my shame
You cried but no one came and the water filled your tiny lungs
Appear, my dear, and sing to me
It was six years ago today that we laid you in your grave
Your sweet young skin was shining then too
And so tonight to celebrate i will poison myself
Another coughing, shaking fit in a bathroom that is spinning
So I close the door and rest my head on the tile floor
Sickness and sleep turning me cold
I'm still not sure, is there some better place I should be heading towards?
Where the selfishly sick and self-absorbed are welcome
I saw the future once, I was drunk in a phone booth
My eyes were wet and red, but I could not tell what was said
And through the screams of the traffic voices carried
Saying I'm sorry
On a day so gray it's black inside, watching churches on TV
In a coma you don't dream, you just hope that someone sits with you
Babies turn blue when they're ignored like the sky on summer days
Before you turn and walk away it has changed you
So tonight to compensate I will poison myself
Another coughing, shaking fit in a bathroom that is spinning

Contrast and compare
Between the busy ones, and the ones that don't care
Until there is no one that you really know
So I drift through these days of appointments and promises made
They will all end up broken and quickly replaced
Weeks are slow, days drag on
Even practice and parties seem long, but I find myself going
I guess there's nothing to do... oh well
Group of kids, line of cars, more will show up after the bars close
There's this boredom that drowns everything
Bottles break, music plays, conversations competing for space
I look for a corner or a quieter room
There's no heat in this house, I can't breathe with these words in my mouth
But I'm not going to say them
Yeah, I've made that mistake before
On the stairs, she grabs my arm
Says whats up, where you been, is something wrong?
I try to just smile, and say everything's fine

The city has sex with itself I suppose
As the concrete collides, the scenery grows
And the lonely once bandaged lay fully exposed
Having exposed their wounds for each other
And there's a boy in a basement with a four track machine
He's been strumming and screaming all night, down there
The tape hiss will cover the words that he sings
But they say it's better to bury your sadness
In a graveyard or garden that waits for the spring
To awake from its sleep and burst into green
And I've cried and you would think I'd feel better for it
But the sadness just sleeps and it stays in your spine for the rest of your life
And I've learned and you'd think I'd be something more now
But it just goes to show it is not what you know
It's what you were thinking at the time
This feeling's familiar, I've been here before
In a kitchen this quiet I waited for a sign
Or just something that might reassure me
Of anything close to meaning or motion, with a reason to move
I need something I want to be close to
And I scream, but I still don't know why I do it
Because the sound never stays, it just swells and decays
So what is the point?
Why try to fight what is now so certain?
The truth is all that I am is a passing event
That will be forgotten

Now that it's June, we'll sleep out in the garden
And if it rains, we'll just sink into the mud
Where it is quiet and much cooler than the house is
And there's no clocks or phones to wake us up
Because I have learned that nothing is as pressing
As the one who's pressing would like you to believe
And I'm content to walk a little slower
Because there's nowhere that I really need to be
And I find that life is easier when it's just a blur
With no details to confuse who or what or where I was
So when the ending comes the full regret will seem obscure
But these are days we dream about when the sunlight paints us gold
And this apartment could not be prettier
As we dance up there alone
And this TV's old, the color's fucked, do you see the difference in the shades?
But the green's still close to green, my love
And I believe we are the same
And we'll stay like this, all gold and green
Light collects and projects your heart on a movie screen
And if you close your eyes, we will always be
The way we were that night you crawled inside of me
And you slept in my blood the way you sleep now
The quietest hush has consumed this house
And when the doctors have gone and you sweat through the bed
With the pictures and pills they piled around your head
Just rest now, and in a moment you'll know everything
Was it all a dream?
It's too vague now to recount
An outline of the one you loved
In a life that was, that no longer will be
Stands above you as you sleep

Touch, lying on the floor
Wishing this could last, knowing that it can't
And soon you will leaveAnd I'll be on the floor, watching the TV
Trying hard to find a reason to move
I'm frozen in one place, staring at the screen
Listening to the rain falling on the street
Some days go on too long, and no one can hang out tonight
Here, where the carpet's cool and soft
Underneath the clock I feel my weary heart is put to rest
You gather around your friends, the connection that you feel
When the night has not yet died
You are new, with the promise of a love you'll probably never find
And a touch that you can really feel
The brokenness inside as hope and this collide
And nothing is real
Oh, there's nothing more I want
Than just one night that's free of doubt and sadness
One night, one night, that I can really feel

I spent a week drinking the sunlight of Winnetka, California
Where they understand the weight of human hearts
See, sorrow gets too heavy and joy it tends to hold you
With the fear that it eventually departs
And the truth is I've been dreaming of some tired tranquil place
Where the weather won't get trapped inside my bones
And if all these years of searching find one sympathetic face
Then it's there I'll plant these seeds and make my home
I spent a day dreaming of dying in Mesa, Arizona
Where all the green of life had turned to ash
And I felt I was on fire, with the things I could have told you
I just assumed that you eventually would ask
And I wouldn't have to bring up my so badly broken heart
And all those months I just wanted to sleep
And though spring, it did come slowly, I guess it did its part
My heart has thawed and continues to beat
And I visited my brother on the outskirts of Olympia
Where the forest and the water become one
And we talked about our childhood, like a dream we were convinced of
The perfect, peaceful street that we came from
And I know he heard me strumming all those sad and simple chords
As I sat inside my room so long ago
And it hurts that he's still shaking from those secrets that were told
By a car closed up too tight and a heart turned cold
And I went to San Diego, and the birthplace of the summer
And watched the ocean dance under the moon
There was a girl I knew there, one more potential lover
I guess that something's gotta happen soon
'Cause I know I can't keep living in this dead or dying dream
And as I walked along the beach and drank with her
I thought about my true love, the one I really need
With eyes that burn so bright, they make me pure
They make me pure, they make me pure
I long to be with you
They make me pure, they make me pure
I long to be with you

Is the passion all gone?
Or is it still newly-wed?
If all this heat's doing is making us stick to the bed
Then there is no life to revive
But if the hunger's still there, hidden somewhere inside
Covered up by the boredom we've been trying to hide
Then dig it up and devour it
And it'll be more like a song
And less like it's math
When you pull on my hair, and bite me like that
And the truth is that I can't hardly wait
And I don't care if we stay up too late
Don't answer the phone, don't answer the phone
And it'll be more like a song
And less like it's math
When you pull on my hair, and bite me like that
And the truth is that I can't hardly wait
It's so bad I can't concentrate
Don't answer the phone, don't answer the phone
And it'll be more like a song
And less like it's math
When you pull on my hair, and bite me like that

The language in the dimmer rooms seems to represent the light source well
How soft they speak and seem to be at peace
With the music and the madness that is pulling me into this
And the shades of the lamps are woven red
The light, it stains and consecrates
Anointing all forgotten forms that swirl and smoke and haunt this place
The girls in gowns all nurse the dark, pulling it near to their swelling breasts
And watch as it seeps to their hearts, and beats within their virgin chests
And here I know seduction breeds from wanton hearts that would seduce
And grows and spreads its vine and leaves
Embracing those who might have moved
But now remain to drink the night from vials black and thick
With intoxicating delights that would leave you drunk inside this dream
And you watch them take the light from you
And you find yourself on a velvet couch
Tasting the skin of a foreign girl
Her eyes are black and wet like oil
And she ties your hands with a string of pearls
And you tremble like a frightened bird as she closes in and captures you
To place you in a silver cage deep within her poisoned womb
And once you're safe inside
She might let you out to fly in circles around the room
But it's always night and there is no moon
And you wonder if you're still alive, and you�re not sure if you want to be
But you drank her sweat like it was wine, and you lay with her on a bed of blue
And it's awful sweet, like the fruit she cuts and feeds to you

Let's sail away, past the noise of the bay
Let's sail away, past the birth and death of the day
Let's sail away, to where the blues and greens swirl into gray
Let's sail away
Let's sail away, past the cradle of these waves
Let's sail away, past the tide and its slow decay
Let's sail away, to where the water goes, some endless open space
Let's sail away
Take only what you need, my love, and leave the rest behind
Don't be afraid of where we'll go, my love, I promise we'll be fine
Now you are the only one that's mine
Let's sail away, past the reflections of the light
Let's sail away, floating weightless through the night
Let's sail away, like a photograph, fading to all white
It's finally all right
Forget all the mistakes, my love, they won't be made again
Leave the photos in the drawer, my love, we no longer need them
We both know where we've been
Let's sail away, disappearing in the mist
Let's sail away, with a whisper and a kiss
Or vanish from a road somewhere, like Tereza and Tomas
Suspended in this bliss

Sitting around, no work today
Try pacing to keep awake
Laying around, no school today
Just drink until the clock has circled all the way
It's late afternoon as you walk through the rooms
Of a house that is quiet, except for unanswered telephones
You stand near the sink while you're mixing a drink
You think you don't want to pass out
Where your roommates will find you again
Stumble around the neighborhood with nothing to do
You're always looking for something to sniff, smoke, or swallow
Calling over next door to see what they've got
You would settle for anything that would make your brain slow down or stop
Break this circle of thoughts you chase
Before they catch back up with you
Your parents noticied your thinning face
All the weight you lost, all the weight you're losing
You said, "I'm done feeling like a skeleton, no more sleep walking dead"
You're gonna wake from this coma
You're gonna crawl from this bed you have made
And stop counting on that camera that hangs round your neck
Because you will never remember what you choose to forget
As you try to find some source of light
Try to name one thing you like
You used to have such a longer list
And light, you never had to look for it
But now it's so easy, it's so easy to second guess everything you do
Until all you want is to finish this half-empty glass
Before the ice all melts away
This feeling always used to pass
But it seems like it's every day
Seems like it's every night now

Lately I've been wishing I had one desire
Something that would make me never want another
Something that would make it so that nothing matters
All would be clear then
But I guess I'll have to settle for a few brief moments
And watch it all dissolve into a single second
And try to write it down into a perfect sonnet
Or one foolish line
'Cause that's all that you'll get, so you'll have to accept
You are here, then you're gone
But I believe that lovers should be tied together
Thrown into the ocean in the worst of weather
Left there to drown, left there to drown in their innocence
But as for me I'm coming to the final chapter
I read all of the pages and there's still no answer
Only all that was before I know must soon come after
That's the only way it can be
So I stand in the sun, and I breathe with my lungs
I'm trying to spare me the weight of the truth
Saying everything you've ever seen was just a mirror
You've spent your whole life sweating in an endless fever
And laying in a bathtub full of freezing water
Wishing you were a ghost
But once you knew a girl and you named her Lover
Danced with her in kitchens through the greenest summer
Autumn came, she disappeared, you can't remember
Where she said she was going to
But you know that she's gone 'cause she left you a song
That you don't want to sing
We're singing, I believe that lovers should be chained together
Thrown into a fire with their songs and letters
And left there to burn in their arrogance
But as for me I'm coming to my final failure
I've killed myself with changes trying to make things better
Ended up becoming something other than what I had planned to be
All right
I believe that lovers should be draped in flowers
And laid entwined together on a bed of clover
And left there to sleep
Left there to dream of their happiness

There's a car parked where the block begins
And there are people singing praises
Say it's all because of him
And there's a bird perched on a frayed wet wire
And his voice sings out for a lover
But it's covered by the choir
Of voices reaching way beyond the rafters
With devotion they perform these sacred tasks
They cross themselves and offer up their checkbooks
Say that suffering is not too much to ask
Besides, we all are making money
And we're all fucking alone
And we don't know what we're doing
Maybe just buying us some hope
Because we know that we are lonely
Yeah, lonely that's for sure
And the older ones are coughing
Yeah, the older ones are dying
Maybe we're all dying
I pass a graveyard on my way to work
Today I saw two dozen white roses on a fresh new mound of dirt
And I wondered about the occupant
When the darkness finally swallowed him, was he calm and content?
Or was he sweating in a struggle to keep breathing
Ripping apart the sheets that dressed his bed
Crying out loud for someone to help him
And collapsing on his back all pale and dead
Maybe it's me who's this unstable
Always obsessed about the end
Why can't I let what happens happen, and just enjoy the time I spend?
Oh, how I wish it was that easy
But when there is no point to anything
It can get a bit confusing
why it is that I keep going
Why is it that we keep going?

If you could change your days, arranging them in some sweet new sequence
Like any new arrangement's gonna make a difference
Because it's the moment that you're living in and not the one that follows
That makes this mess you're cleaning in your head
And time still drags you forward, though you keep resisting
Because you know it's what you leave behind that you'll soon start missing
And the people you once counted on now say it's all depending
On how you act and how you treat yourself
And that's not very well
So baby, when I call for you
I want you to come and explain yourself to everyone
You nod in an acknowledgement of your frequent mood swings
But what good's an acknowledgement, it still don't change things
We've tried all forms of encouragement, and it's still no better
You just can't seem to fake or force a smile
Not even a little one
So baby, when I call to you I want you to come
And lay it out for everyone
Exactly how it was before any of this happened
And why you can't leave it behind
Don't just sit there when I call to you
I told you to come and lay it out for
Don't feel awkward
Lay it out for everyone

In the morning when you throw up water
And your skin, it turns a pale, pale yellow
Well, every day you lose more color
Do you think that someone paints your mirror?
Do you think that someone paints your mirror?
So you think that things sound different
At the time when you speak
Well, there are visions much clearer than these blurs that you see
And like Neely O'Hara, you swallow your sleep
And wake up in the morning to find out
You are not who you used to be
You don't recognize behavior, or the spelling of your name
And the shape that's in the mirror
Well, you'd swear it's not the same
And like Neely O'Hara, you swallow your sleep
And you really can't remember
But you know you are not, think you are not
No, you are not who you used to be

The drunk kids, the catholics
They're all about the same
They're waiting for something, hoping to be saved
Well I have been happy the past couple days
Just thinking of the women who've taken your place
And every night I think I won't ever sleep sober or alone
And then suddenly it occurs to me that I slept alone before you
And so I pour myself the stiffest drink that my stomach can stand
And I convince myself to lay back down again
I'm gonna lay back down, I'm gonna lay back down again
The drunk kids, the catholics
Are all about the same
They're waiting for something
Hoping to be saved
They crawl from the ocean to paint in the caves
But I'm working all weekend
I need to get paid

All eyes on the calendar, another year I claim of total indifference
To here the days pile up with decisions to be made
I'm sure all of them were wrong
Into this song, I send myself
And with these drinks I plan to collapse and forget
This wasted year, these wasted years
Devoted friends, they disappear
I'm sorry about the phone call, and needing you
Some decisions you don't make
I guess it's like breathing and not wanting to
There are some things that you can't fake
I guess that it's typical to cling to memories you'll never get back again
And to sort through old photographs of a summer long ago
Or a friend that you used to know
And there, below his frozen face, you wrote the name and that ancient date
And you can't believe he is really gone
When all that's left is a fucking song
I'm sorry about the phone call and waking you
I know that it's late
But thank you for talking, because I needed to
Some things just can't wait

So, I'm just the medicine
You take when you're sick
You get well and that's it
I'm put back on the shelf in your mirror
And it isn't exceptional
The course of our fate
So, people love and they hate
And I guess it's just our turn to hate
Yeah, you were just some song I wrote
A poem on a page
A sculpture I made out of clay
Desire was the flame
But now you're more of a basketball
Boys just pass you around
They bounce you hard on the ground and dribble
And then we all get high fives
And you think I'm an asshole now
Well, you're probably right
But at least I'm not blind to the facts
I've been wishing were lies
But still I hope you get everything
That you care to possess
And unbelievable sex with him
Or any one of my friends
But just don't ask about my appetite
I didn't lose it tonight
No, it's been gone half my life
It's just act, I've been eating for you

Your class, your caste, your country, sect, your name or your tribe
There's people always dying trying to keep them alive
There are bodies decomposing in containers tonight
In an abandoned building where

A squatter's made a mural of a Mexican girl
With fifteen cans of spray paint in a chemical swirl
She's standing in the ashes at the end of the world
Four winds blowing through her hair

But when great Satan's gone, the whore of Babylon
She just can't sustain the pressure where it's placed
She caves

The Bible's blind, the Torah's deaf, the Qu'ran's mute
If you burn them all together you get close to the truth still
They are pouring over sanskrit on the ivy league moons
While shadows lengthen in the sun

Cast on a school of meditation built to soften the times
And hold us at the center while the spiral unwinds
It's knocking over fences, crossing property lines
Four winds, cry until it comes

And it's the sum of man
Slouching towards Bethlehem
A heart just can't contain all of that empty space
It breaks, it breaks, it breaks

Well, I went back to my rented Cadillac and company jet
Like a newly orphaned refugee, retracing my steps
All the way to Cassadaga to commune with the dead
They said, "You'd better look alive"

And I was off to old Dakota where a genocide sleeps
In the black hills, the bad lands, the calloused east
I buried my ballast, I made my peace
Heard four winds leveling the pines

But when great Satan's gone, the whore of Babylon
She just can't remain with all that outer space
She breaks, she breaks, she caves, she caves

My friend you were the model
A priceless work of art
Boys would fashion their emotions
To the pattern of your heart
And I heard you wrote that record
For a girl you loved but died
I'm here sewing mine together
Just hoping you're alive
And I know you'll never come back now
To the world where people are
Because you never understood
What they loved you for

Now ghosts, they have their secrets
And they'll tell them to a few
So you could never pay attention
When they're whispering to you
There were many talents you possessed
That I wished myself to have
But the way your eyes would gloss over
Well, I never envied that
And I doubt you'll ever come back now
From wherever it is you are
Because you never understood
What we loved you for

I'm sure the TV sets will tell us
When someone reinvents the wheel
Until then I'll have a million conversations
About shit that isn't real
But I've tried to breathe in meaning
Dig deep to every gasp of air
Because I know you did the same thing
For as long as you could bear
I guess everything just circles around
To where it was before
So I hope I see you soon
In some other form

Come on in, my weary friend
The welcome here is endless

These fears of yours, like painted whores
They will not stay the night
If all your life you've done what's right
Dont say you felt obliged

Come on along, is your timid tongue
Too shy to tell your story?
This pain in you so far removed
From anything youve known
So I wont condone another moan
When everything is fine

So when in drought, learn to dance
And pray the dead would return

Dream smoke without fire
Just come see me again when it burns

Somewhere along the way
Well, I was led astray
By a wolf in no one's clothing
It was a brilliant disguise

And I forgot that life existed
I thought it was just some kind of game
That's what brings me to your doorstep
Though I dont know why I came today

Standing still in the dust
Giving up on the rain
As with smoke without fire
I've already laid in the flames

I've already laid in the flames

Brother, be afraid of the flames

There's a skinny dog
In a dirty parking lot
And he doesn't bite
But he begs
And he knows what's true
So if you are, he'll follow you
If you're headed home
All the way
So we let him finish
Every dinner plate
And we watched his tail say thanks, thanks, thanks
And we tried to name him
But he ran away
Once he knew his freedom was at stake

This same old shit
So it's how you deal with it
It's the glove that fits
That you wear
So when the wind blows strong
I put a few more layers on
And I tell myself
I don't care
I might make a phone call
To a better man
To ask the questions that I have, have, have
Like how do I get started
And where's it going to end?
Why should I treat a traitor like a friend?

I listened to a lecture of nonsense until dawn
By a plagiary poet with dark glasses on
He said, "How did you ever dream up that song
The one where the baby dies?"

I said, "I'll tell you the secret, which one's your good ear?
Yeah, people are made up of water and fear
If there weren't women present we wouldn't be here
So let's make like we're friends"

And the pot turned to powder and soured the mood
And the people I'd come with were gone from the room
So I asked like a child, "May I be excused?"
And disobeyed them all

Into that late-night latrine, rain soaking through my shoes
I tried walking backwards to get less confused
Working off the theory I could never prove
That it was life itself to blame

And time ruined the world
Like a failed revolution
A tumor we could not remove
An old friend, a constant, the blues

Now my days are distractions, sit wringing my hands
Solitaire, crosswords and films on demand
When you turn from a cartoon back into a man
You start to smell that human smell

So I sleep with the fan on to drown out the street
And the noise rising up from the bar underneath
But for that inconvenience all my drinks are free
So I guess it's just as well

Why do I envy the ending right from the start
Just get it together to take it apart
Watching the horse as it follows the cart
I sweep up my broken spell

And I felt something changing the world
Like a new constitution
A thief I would have to pursue
At all times, at all costs, the truth

It's not the road we used to know
They tore some buildings down
The traffic's like a pack of dogs

There's fewer trees, windows, fleas
There's concrete on the lawn
There's people here but you are gone

And I find still swimming through time
Afraid some days I've reached the shore

"Make yourself free"
Man said back to me
Now my heart is like an open door

And the road finally gave me back
But I dont think I'll unpack
Because I'm not sure if I live here any more

It's not my weight that makes me faint
Or the sugar in my blood
But the way these strangers stand so close

They say my name like a guessing game
"Is that really you?"
No, I dont think it ever was

In the spring
When the world's turning green
I only think about the fall
The frets on the board
My progression of chords
Oh, how I want this to resolve

And the road finally gave me back
But I dont think I'll unpack
Because I'm not sure if I live here any more

Now the road finally gave me back
But I dont think I'll unpack

Because I'm not sure if I live here
No, I'm not sure if I live here
No, I'm not sure if I live here
Anymore

Corporate or Colonial
The Movement is unstoppable
Like the body of a centerfold it spreads
To the counter-culture copyright
Get your revolution at a lower price
Or make believe and throw the fight, play dead
It's exploding bags, aerosol cans
Southbound buses, Peter Pan
They left it up to us again
I thought you knew the drill
It's kill or be killed

Future Markets, Holy Wars
Been tried ten thousand times before
If you think that God is keeping score, Hooray!
For the freedom-fighting simulcast (Victory! A defeat! Victory!)
The imminent and the aftermath
Draw another bloody bath to drain
Like the polar icecaps centrifuge (Oh Allah! Oh Jesus please!)
First snowman built at the end of June
He slicks his hair for the interview, his fifteen-minute fame
Would you agree times have changed?