It seems to me I've wasted all my time looking so hard for you It seems to me you've wasted all your time When the bedrock falls into the sea And all is not as it should be There seems to be no reason and no rhyme It seems you caught yourself believing all the things you can't believe It seems to me that you've fallen behind When you're found in someone else's dream Collecting all your thoughts, it seems To me that you have finally lost your mind So what if I checked out, backed down Then returned to the place where you lay At least I left town and tried to sort out All the cards I was dealt but never played It seems our generation is flying circles, not sure where to land While the others on the ground ain't hard to find But when they see us soaring overhead Reclining in their feather beds Do they wonder if they're wasting all their time? It seems to me I've got this sinking feeling lately I can't shake I swear to you, it's somewhere deep inside That this whole mad world is lookin' 'round A-wonderin' if somebody's found A cure for this disease that we all share but can't define A disease that we all share but can't define So what if I checked out, backed down, Then returned to the place where you lay At least I left town and tried to sort out All the cards you were dealt but never played It seems to me you've hit another wall Don't turn around again Just scale it and drop on the other side 'Cause at least you'll cover some new ground So when you finally lay back down You'll know you haven't wasted all your time So what if you checked out, backed down Then returned to the place where you lay At least you left town and tried to sort out All the cards you were dealt but never played

The road was a mess. I was to blame, running my mouth to the crowd at the county parade. All the firetrucks stalled and the marching band refused to play as I say all I need to say. Then just as I expected a riot arose. It started with men on the governor's float screaming curses at all of the Communist folks who agreed with one line in the speech that I wrote. The kids rushed to the street to pick up the candy that spilled at the governor's feet. As a driver was watching me ranting my speech, he saw the kids and veered only to hit a police car. A man with a tract heard me and nearly died, and the prom queen was thrown from the passenger side. All the medics rushed to see if both were alive with the chaos surrounding them on every side. Then the sky began to rain, and the people revolted in rage, so I quickly ran away from the microphone they had left vacantly there on the stage. I raced straight to your door, needing a basement to hide in more than before. I'm wanted for treason so high for speaking ill of the war. I forgot that no one had the choice to ignore me when everyone simply believes what they're told if the product is packaged and properly sold. Now the universe is spinning all out of control when the men with degrees don't believe in our souls. So I guess I'll hide out here a couple of years and write and record all my songs from here. I'll perpetuate everyone's loneliest fears: that if we're in the wrong, we have God's wrath to bear, and the angels won't delay in letting our bodies decay. But if we are the chosen race, we have unnumbered years to discuss how we blew them away. ("Man, we blew them away!") If you believe the God you praise was beaten and killed for his enemies' sake, then the wars you choose to wage only serve to exterminate all that you claimed he had saved. I guess you never thought of it that way. So take up your guns and carefully aim because I know this song won't change a thing. Though you can't refute the words I sang, you will carefully fashion a way to explain them away. So just explain them away.

Shots of you as a kid, take them back down again from The wall where they hang sings a constant refrain Of the day that you drank her away The television is on It's been playing infomercials all night long There you're passed out by the fridge in a pool of condiments and a dish that's been broken to bits You're just too old to try and let her go But when was the last time that you saw her? You're just too stoned to know which way is home Where's the last place that you woke up? Where's the last place that you woke up alone? Take them all down and then take them back down again The tools of your trade are an axe and a grenade Barricade the foundations you laid For all we know, she took a one-way plane to Tokyo For all we know, she is still somewhere inside the state For all we know, she is halfway to the moon by now For all you know, you sure do make some terrible mistakes

He went to see a show in Pennsylvania. A timid girl at a piano opened for the band. When he heard her sing, he knew she sang in words so true, thinking, "I don't think I ever loved before I first loved you." She sang a song he'd known since he was just a child and captivated everyone who gathered in the crowd. And he sat silently as Beauty played an ancient tune, thinking, "I don't know if I ever loved before I first loved you. "I first loved you in the spotlight I first loved you before you were well known And everything I swore I would proclaim Got whittled down to say aloud your name I first loved you." He watched her fingers dance along the keyboard and ecstatically applauded as she played her final chord. Then he made it backstage to say, "No matter what you do, if you must be moving on, dear, would you please take me with you?" She just laughed and shook his hand and left to listen to the band while no one else around her even noticed she was there. The boy was just dumbfounded at how quickly it was through, thinking, "I don't think my heart was broken 'til I first loved you. "I first loved you before you met me I first loved you in towers made of stone Where you spent 400 years up there alone Before I took you down and placed you on your throne. "I first heard you in Philadelphia. I first loved you before your eyes went dull When faced against the lights of all your fame When you could no longer stand among a crowd without someone asking you to sign you name... Long after I first loved you."

Come into the backyard To see my picturesque work of art That I pulled out before the dirt could cave on me Pretend it's made of tin cans And not the bones of history And it might make you smile if you don't get too lonely I'm sorry I couldn't be there But I had so much work to do Pandora opened up my head, now the chaos reigns I'm receiving orders From the highest form of intelligence It was telling me to not answer my phone So when you tried to call me All you got was the machine And you heard me making threats to all authority that must be after me My fingerprints are always giving me away So there is no point to dissuade Caught up in this, I only have myself to blame As the lot that is cast on me is murder in the third degree The 8 of Clubs decided he wasn't getting enough respect, so he began to plan a way to escape the deck. All the kings and queens said, "If you leave, we are incomplete, and we'll all be discarded by the morning." Well, he found out the hard way that nobody wants an 8 of Clubs if it's not found among the other fifty-one. My fingerprints are always giving me away So there is no point to dissuade Caught up in this, I only have myself to blame As the lot that is cast on me is murder in the third degree

The two Jehovah's Witnesses were knocking at my door Telling me about the love of God and the glory of the Lord They remind me of a woman at my windowsill who is calling out my name But I hear wisdom calling out as well from across the lonely plain So I walked down to the corner store a quarter mile down the street Staring at the laces on my shoes as I was shuffling my feet Before I knew it, I was lost somewhere in aisle 5 with an odd look on my face Because I'd forgotten why I walked that quarter mile in the first place And I was thinking of the life I'd like to live And how somebody somewhere else was prob'ly living it and thinking of the life that they would like to live: the one I'm living. I was seeing forms that don't exist hearing voices with no tongues Singing melancholy melodies with the words yet to be sung Every shape was shifting sideways 'til my balance was thrown off Onto the tile floor I landed, but the tile felt so soft Just like the mattress on which I awoke, I exhaled in relief Because my dream had momentarily suspended my belief So in reality I now emerge all dreary-eyed to the main room of my house To find those two Jehovah's Witnesses are sleeping on my couch I've been high and low, between reality and dream And I've seen everything a man could ever hope to see 'Cause when I'm here, I'm gone When I'm right, I'm mostly wrong What's the point? Everything looks better from the flip side of the coin And this guy is thinking of the life he'd like to live, and how I'm out here in the ether proudly living it, thinking of the life that I would like to live: the one he's living. That man breathed with a punctured lung and the smoke was all released From all the cigarettes he unfairly won at a local lottery There was food for his stomach, drops for his eyes A human so dehumanized As they strapped him down, they failed to realize His heart was going to break Into a million puzzle pieces from a thousand cardboard boxes Some of rivers and lighthouses, or serpents holding children hostage When I tried to sweep the floor of them, I only found that there were more of them than you ever could have swept, Than you ever would expect there to be I've been high and low, between reality and dream And I've seen everything a man could ever hope to see 'Cause when I'm here, I'm gone When I'm right, I'm mostly wrong I should know... Everything seems smaller when you look from so damn high Everything looks better from the flip side of the coin Everything seems smaller when you look from so damn high

Well, I woke up this morning, Fell into the light, Sneezed from the pollen floating on the wind and strapped the thongs of my sandals tight Then proceeded to parade around the universe I've been well versed in faking my own smiles But this time, baby, it's genuine And she said, "Why don't we go where the birds all go? We'll fly north in the summertime and back south when it snows." Then I said, "Why don't you tell me something I don't know? Like now will never be then, and the forever winter is coming to an end." There's a parrot on my shoulder Who tells me what to think I've got a girl in a trench coat tucked in the corner But, boy, she sure looks pretty in pink I've been an apathetic jerk, hypothetically rising up from the ashes of Adam I might look real, but I'm not really here 'Cause I've been sitting in the grass somewhere Smell the familiar aroma It knocked me off my feet this morning It's waking me out of a coma And she said, "Why don't we go where the birds all go? We'll fly north in the summertime and back south when it snows." Then I said, "Why don't you tell me something I don't know? Like today is just a trend, and the forever winter is coming to an end." You're the ghost in my bathroom mirror You're the patterned breath on the phone You're the drone that repeats itself You're the story that's still being told You're the crimp in my hourglass You're the last known task on my list It's the kiss that may captivate some, but it's either a hit or a miss I'm the clause at the end of the paragraph where the author will pause and collect his thoughts, cross out the previous line and rewrite it again 'til he's lost, rubbing his eyes and staring incessantly hard at a cursor that's blinking 'til dawn, writes in a "..." to resolve an already obvious plot dragging on. Take this wasted moment and make it a moment to keep Take this, erase it, block it completely from your memory (Chorus) Like everything that's been is the forever winter coming to an end.

"Her hands inside her pockets deep Rolling a ball of lint between her fingertips Possessing everything she needs in the caverns of her sleeves For she has several tricks up there which I once heard tell-tale of But never seemed all that plausible to me "But I have learned to bite my tongue And let her actions speak Put to shame the basis of my disbelief For she is on a role tonight "Ladies and Gentlemen, If you'd please direct your gaze to the woman on the stage: The Great Mrs. Untouchable! "Her father died in Vietnam And she will swear to you she never met her mom And her brothers and sisters were dismembered by a bomb She's been married several times, But they've never been in love long enough to get a good look in her eyes They say they've never seen her cry "'Cause she has learned to turn her head And ride that picket fence Dividing fantasy and simple common sense She'll stay a million miles away "Ladies and Gentlemen, If you'd please direct your gaze and prepare to be amazed By the Great Mrs. Untouchable! "The Magnificent, Incredible, Starkly Unemotional, Never Duplicate...able, The Great Mrs. Untouchable!"

You've got the face of a goddess falling from her cloud Into the dust she created those eons and eons ago A whirlwind of ideas on pages--all shredded, Scattered to the wind Like ashes afloat on the ocean The urn now completely and utterly broken as you Designs of diamonds and rubble And all that lies there in between And there's you: the most beautiful thing I've e'er seen Together we sing, "Glory, Hallelujah! Glory, Hallelujah!" It was 1905, with you and I barely alive But willing to try to survive Remnants caked on the faces of children as war paint on wolves As a beaded necklace on a tree branch A shabby nest for doves and crows, Vultures and snowbirds That you now wear in your hair like a crown or a halo Your feet in the soil Your age is now perfectly spelled out in rings Of these circular patterns, peculiar things And then you Dogs pissing on your roots Causing you to grow For maybe you can get back up to your cloud If you're tall enough now And there's you: the most beautiful tree I have found I'll sing here from the ground: "Glory, Hallelujah! Glory Hallelujah!" It was 1915, with you and me causing a scene Enveloped in green It was 1905, with you and I barely alive But willing to try to survive

The audience cheers I can't relate As I sit at the sidelines and watch the parade In my own little world The daydream of me on the stage Replays and replays in my brain The sky began to rain And everyone left the parade So I slowly walked away Down the dim, empty street with the angels singing their praise Singing, "Hallelujah..."

I surveyed the barren land in the palm of my own hand On Willard Street Trying hard to understand all the properties of man On Willard Street I held my face against the wind, that cold and bitter wind On Willard Street And I was counting all my sins I was counting my own sins, again and again It seemed I'd never reach the end But when I did, I came out cleansed And there was joy where pain had been So I dot the sky with its thousand "i"s I crossed my t's and I clenched my teeth Waiting for heaven to call on me But the chariot of fire was held up overseas (Chorus 1) I don't know, I don't know Where the seasons may go Where spring hides when it snows Or why the flowers won't grow Well...oh, well...I can't tell If the leaves when they fell Knew their final abode Would meet them on the road All my senses had been lost, and my memory was tossed Onto Willard Street And the grass on the front lawns was layered thick with frost On Willard Street It came to my surprise that there was something in my eyes On Willard Street Waiting for the moon to rise Waiting for the moon to rise, and it came disguised Encased in yellow rays of light that were almost white And the man inside who had flipped the switch suddenly went blind The panic rose up in my chest; I knew the day would never rest again Until the light finally burns out and the darkness flows like water all around (Chorus 1) I don't know, I don't know Where in time I may go Why I'm sad when it snows Or just how old I may grow Well...oh, well; I can't tell If I'll be sure of myself When my final abode Comes to greet me here On Willard Street