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, he's caught in the 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 a mother takes loans out, sends her kids off to colleges Her family's reduced to names on a shopping list While a coroner kneels beneath a great wooden crucifix He knows there's 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 to call home Well, my teachers, they built this retaining wall of memory All those multiple choices I answered so quickly And got my grades back, and forgot just as easily But at least I got an A And so I don't have them to blame
Well I should stop pointing fingers, reserve my judgement Of all those public action figures, the cowboy presidents So loud behind the bullhorn, so proud they can't admit When they've made a mistake Well, poison ink spews from a speechwriter's pen He knows he don't have to say it so it, it don't bother him Honesty, accuracy, just popular opinion And the approval rating's high And so someone's gonna die
Well, ABC, NBC, CBS bullshit They give us fact or fiction, I guess an even split And each new act of war is tonight's entertainment We're still the pawns in their game As they take eye for an eye, until no one can see We must stumble blindly forward, repeating history Well I guess we all fit into your slogan in that fast food marquee Red-blooded, white skinned, oh and the blues Oh, and the blues, I got the blues, that's me! (That's me!) That's me!
Well I awoke in relief, my sheets and tubes were all tangled Weak from whiskey and pills in a Chicago hospital And my father was there, in a chair by the window Staring so far away I tried talking, just whispered, "So sorry, so selfish" He stopped me and said, "Child, I love you regardless There's 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 While a million objects pass through my periphery Now 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
My brown eyes, two pools of mud Resting in two dark moons, they turn the tide into a flood And the bloodshot lines in the whites map every A road in this town, All the glare of the city lights, every cul de sac we've talked down Over time they build up the city, and our arguments show it all Every ring road, every motorway, displayed in crease and wrinkle Until my face is a map you have folded up one hundred, one thousand times.
You know it starts pretty rough and ends up even worse, And what goes on in between, I try to keep it out of my thoughts
Your blue eyes are like the deepest and the warmest seas As the salt elevates my body, they float my heart up past my teeth And with the water and the Cypriot sun, would your psoriasis bleach and be gone? Would it fix the pallor of my skin? Would my freckles all meld into one? Your body above me, sobbing down, my cheeks wet from your tears They extinguish each of the burning thread veins, flow down to my ears Now they rest in two tiny reservoirs that overfed the wedded canals
You know it starts pretty rough and ends up even worse, And what goes on in between, I try to keep it out of my thoughts
And life, life is a long time, too long to my mind, too long by far Between my waterfalls and your landslides, there's cartography in every scar Life, life is a long time, too long to my mind, too long by far
Because it starts pretty rough and ends up even worse, And what goes on in between, I try to keep it out of my thoughts You know it starts pretty rough and ends up even worse, And what goes on in between, I try to keep it out of my thoughts
It’s so cold in this country Every road home is long He had a map that he bought For the price of his soul He had a reason to go there And a warm place to stay And when it came time to leave It was never the right day
Good luck bad luck survivor Sleep is my friend and my rival Good luck bad luck survivor
There was a girl who he married And he left her behind He couldn’t picture her face now It was like he was blind Up at five in the morning Every breath was a storm
Its so cold in this country you can never get warm
Good luck bad luck survivor Sleep is my friend and my rival Good luck bad luck survivor Good luck bad luck survivor Sleep is my friend and my rival Good luck bad luck survivor
It’s a strange disappearance It’s a real mystery Is he asleep in the snow Does he feel free There’s a person he once was in a place far away
It’s so cold in this country October to May
Good luck bad luck survivor Sleep is my friend and my rival Good luck bad luck survivor Good luck bad luck survivor Sleep is my friend and my rival Good luck bad luck survivor Survivor
Good luck bad luck survivor Good luck bad luck survivor Good luck bad luck survivor
I'm a color reporter (rose city on the 409) But the city's been bled white (white city on the yellow line) And the doctor orders (drinking till he's trashed is just a waste of time) drinks all night to take away this curse But it makes me feel much worse
Bled white
So I wait for the f-train (white city on the yellow line) And connect through a friend of mine (white city to a friend of mine) To a yesterdaydream (yesterdaydream was just a waste of time) 'Cause I'll have to be high to drag the sunset down And paint this pailing town
Bled white
So here he comes with a blank expression Especially for me 'cause he knows I feel the same 'Cause happy and sad come in quick succession I'm never going to become What you became
Don't you dare disturb me (don't complicate my piece of mind) While I'm balancing my past (don't complicate my piece of mind) 'Cause you can't help or hurt me (the anger, being mean was just a waste of time) Like it already has, it may not seem quite right But I'm not fucked, not quite
I was waiting for a cross-town train In the London underground When it struck me That I've been waiting since birth to find A love that would look and sound Like a movie So I changed my plans I rented a camera and a van And then I called you "I need you to pretend that we are in love again" And you agreed to
I want so badly to believe That there is truth, that love is real And I want life in every word To the extent that it's absurd
I greased the lens and framed the shot Using a friend As my stand-in The script, it called for rain But it was clear that day So we faked it The marker snapped And I yelled, "Quiet on the set!" And then called, "Action!" And I kissed you in a style Clark Gable would have admired (I thought it classic)
I want so badly to believe That there is truth, that love is real And I want life in every word To the extent that it's absurd
I know you're wise beyond your years But do you ever get the fear That your perfect verse is just a lie You tell yourself to help you get by?