Music and lyrics by Damon Waitkus

Lyrics

Go out, you say, and put your
sugar-fed body into service.
You know that you’re the only one
still foraging for firewood
in our neighborhood?
You don’t need to be told,
if you’ve lit a dozen fires
and you’re still feeling cold, go out!
On a sea wracked with gales,
how easily the wind dies in your sails!

Mr. Smith went to Washington,
but that’s so long ago now.
He hasn’t seen the capital in years.
He runs his fingers through the world,
He feels but doesn’t touch it,
and if he leaves his room, he disappears.
(Ah, but it will howl before it hides it’s head.)

Well you’re right! You’re always right!
And you say…

And I say,
Wouldn’t you take me upstair to your room
when you’re starting your day,
to the place where you find all the words you say,
to your pantry of pills that keep the demons away?
Didn’t I once have a claim on this world
like a thorn in its side, I don’t claim anymore,
I just open wide, ’til I’m consumed with pride.
Didn’t I once live in this world,
in a neighborhood that I understood,
where you didn’t have to disinter the dead
to feel good? How weakly I resist that craving!
God knows if it’s enough to save me!

Mr. Smith at the bathroom sink
looks down a hall of mirrors.
He sees the perfect symmetry of Hell.
(Ah–five-o-five to ten-past-five, light!)
He sees the changing semaphore,
he feels a distant rumble,
he hears the tolling of the vesper bell.
(Right clear down the alley
to where the trash is kept.)

Well you’re right! You’re always right,
and this is all that I can say.
This is all that I can say.

Personnel

DW – voice, guitar, electric piccolo guitar, pianet, percussion, glockenspiel
EP – 5-string violin
KM – voice
JH – electric bass
JG – drums
Andrew Strain – trombone