Bright Eyes Album

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Encoded arc, our common cause
Drink liquid clocks till I see God
Crystal display, can't turn it off

Aahhhhh.... shhhhh

It was Don who delivered the whiskey
And a blinking midnight clock
Speakers on a TV stand
Just a turntable to watch
Only smoke came out our mouths
On all those hooded sweatshirt walls
We were a stroke of luck
You were a gold mine that gutted us

And from the sidelines you'd seen me run
Until I'm out of breath
Living the good life, I left for dead
The sorrowful Midwest
Well I did my best...
To keep my head

It was grass stain jeans and incompletes
And a girl from class to touch
But you think about yourself too much
And you ruin who you love
Well all these claims at consciousness
My straight on freedom
Let's have a nice clean cut
Like a bag we buy and divy up

And from the sidelines I see you run
Until you're out of breath
And all those white lines that sped us up
We hurried to our death
Well I lagged behind...

You can make a plan
Carve it into stone
Like a feather falling
It is still unknown
Until the clock speaks up
Says it's time to go
You could choose the high
Or the lower road
You might clinch your fist
You might fork your tongue
As you curse or praise
All the things you've done
And the faders move
And the music dies
As we pass over
On the arc of time

So you nurse your love
Like a wounded dove
In the covered cage of night
Every star is crossed
By phrenetic thoughts
That seperate and then collide
And they twist like sheets
Till you fall asleep
And they finally unwind
It's a black balloon
It's a dream you'll soon deny

I hear if you make friends
With Jesus Christ
You will get right up
From that chalk outline
And then you'll get dolled up
And you'll dress in white
All to take your place
In his chorus line

And then in you'll come
With those marching drums
In a saintly compromise
No more whiskey slurs
No more blonde haired girls
For your whole eternal life
And you'll do the dance
That was choreographed
At the very dawn of time
Saying, I told you son
The day would come
You would die, you'd die, you'd die, you'd die
You would die, you'd die, you'd die, you'd die
You would die, you'd die, you'd die, you'd die
You would die, you'd die, you'd die

To the deepest part
Of the human heart
The fear of death expands
Till we crack the code
We have always known
But could never understand
On a circuit board
We will soon be born
Again, again, again, again
And again, again, again, again
And again, again, again, again

I heard you fell into a rabbit hole
Covered yourself up in snow
Baby, tell me where'd you go
For days and days
Did they make you stay up all night?
Did they paint your face that pasty white?
You're thirsty but your appetite
Is chased away

The sun turns us to stone
It's a cloudy day
But we still can't go home
Open our back cellar door
Till we see the moon
We're invisible

No one ever takes the garbage out
A new kid gets dare to touch the house
He runs back only to announce
There's no one home

Does he paint the foil with a flame
Smear the soda, taste butane
For every fear that can't be named
To calm you down

Your heart starts skipping steps
So your farther gone
Then you might expect
If your thoughts should turn to death
Got to stomp them out

First with your hands, then with your mouth
A downpour of sweat, damp cotton clouds
I was a fool, you were my friend
We made it happen
You took of your clothes, left on the light
You stood there so brave, you used to be shy
Each feature improved, each movement refined
And eyes like a showroom

Now they are spreading out the blankets on the beach
That weatherman' s a liar, he said it would be raining
But it's clear and blue as far as I can see

Left by the lamp, right next to the bed
On a cartoon cat pad she scratched with a pen
"Everything is as it's always been
This never happened"

"Don't take it so bad, it's nothing you did
It's just once something dies, you can't make it live
You're a beautiful boy, you're a sweet little kid
But I am a woman"

So I laid back down and wrapped myself up in the sheet
And I must have looked like a ghost, cause something frightened me
And since then I've been so good at vanishing

Now I do as I please, and I lie through my teeth
Someone might get hurt, but it won't be me
I should probably feel cheap, but I just feel free
And a little bit empty

No it isn't so hard to get close to me
There will be no arguments, we will always agree
And I will try and be kind when I ask you to leave
We will both take it easy

But if you stay too long inside my memory
I will trap you in a song tied to a melody

I'm staring out into that vacuum again
From the back porch of my mind
The only thing that's alive
I'm all there is
And I start attacking my vodka
Stab the ice with my straw
My eyes have turned red as stop lights
You seem ready to walk
You know I will call you eventually
When I wanna talk
Till then you're invisible

Cause there's this switch that gets hit
And it all stops making sense
And in the middle of drinks
Maybe the fifth or the sixth
I'm completely alone
At a table of friends
I feel nothing for them
I feel nothing!
Nothing!

Well I need a break from the city again
I think I'll ship myself back west
I got a friend there she says
"Hey anytime!"

Unless that offers expired
I have been less than frequent
She's under no obligation
To indulge every whim
And I'm so ungrateful
I take she gives and forgives
And I keep forgetting it

And each morning she wakes
With a dream to describe
Something lovely that bloomed
In her beautiful mind
I say I'll trade you one
For two nightmares of mine
I have some where I die
I have some where we all die

I'm thinking of quitting drinking again
I know I've said that a couple times
And I'm always changing my mind
Well I guess I am

But there's this burn in my stomach
And there's this pain in my side
And when I kneel at the toilet
And the morning's clean light
Pours in through the window
Sometimes I pray I don't die
I'm a goddamn hypocrite

But the night rolls around
And it all starts making sense
There is no right way or wrong
Well you just have to live
And so I do what I do
And at least I exist
What could mean more than this?
What would mean more?
Mean more?

Some plans were made and rice was thrown
A house was built, a baby born
How time can move both fast and slow
Amazes me
And so I raise my glass to symmetry
To the second hand and its accuracy
To the actual size of everything
The desert is the sand
You can't hold it in your hand
It won't bow to your demands
There's no difference you can make
There's no difference you can make
And if it seems like an accident
A collage of senselessness
You aren't looking hard enough
I wasn't looking hard enough

An argument for consciousness
The instinct of the blind insect
Who makes love to the flower bed
And dies in the first freeze
Oh I want to learn such simple things
No politics, no history
Till what I want and what I need
Can finally be the same

I just got myself to blame
Is everything up to fate
When there's choices I could make
When there's choices I could make
Yeah, my heart needs a polygraph
Always so eager to pack my bags
When I really wanna stay
When I really wanna stay

When I wanna stay (x4)

The arc of time, the stench of sex
The innocence you can't protect
Each quarter note, each marble step
Walk up and down that lonely treble clef
Each wanting the next one
Each wanting the next one to arrive
Each wanting the next one
Each wanting the next one to arrive

An argument for consciousness
The instinct of the blind insect
Who never thinks not to accept its fate
That's fate, that's happiness and death
You get to the next one
You get to the next on down the line
You get to the next one
You get to the next on down the line

The remedy of longing that
Distills each dream and the song I had
By morning watered down again
On silver stars I wish and wish and wish

Move on to the next one
Move on to the next one down the line
Move on to the next one
Move on to the next one down the line

You get to the next one
You get to the next on down the line
You get to the next one

A house of cards
A supple heart
Is not a place to dwell
Now you have your cake
Don't hesitate
Come on, just do it
Come on, just do it

Put it in your mouth
There is only now
Tomorrow has to wait

But know there's no backing out
This is gonna be reality
You can never dream it down

I have - no way
Of telling - the two - apart

Well I made amends
In the general sense
But the devil's in the details

And I know the cost
And I wanna stop
But I can't do it
I just can't do it

There was love I meant
There were accidents
So tell me which is which

Cause I just can't work it out
But for memory and clarity
We had better write it down

I have - no way
Of knowing - the truth - with time it dissolves

I put the past into the ground
I saw the future as a cloud
If there's still time to turn around
I'm going to

It's just one day I fell asleep
And now all day I'm not a dream
I am the first one I deceive
If I can make myself believe

I wanna be the surgeon that cuts you open
That fixes all of life's mistakes
I wanna be the house that you were raised in
The only place that you feel safe
I wanna be your shower in the morning
That wakes you up and makes you clean
I know I'm just the weather against your window
As you sleep through a winter's dream

Something's churning the earth, something's stirring the sky
And the colour at once in column of light
Bacteria breeds on a microscope slide
The worm in my heart's the apple of your eye

Don't adore what is impossible
We have built this ship in a wine bottle
But oh, but if you knew how it worked
We would have to grow old

(baby crying)

Somethin's eating at you, wakes you up in the night
If you dig in the past, who knows what you'll find
Read the newspaper print off the microfiche slide
And your holding your breath for the rest for of your life

Don't you love what is intangible
I have built this ship in a wine bottle
But if you knew who I was

Jonny Hobson was a good man
He used to loan me books and mic stands
He even got me a subscription
To the Socialist Review
Listening to records in his basement
Old folk songs about the government
It's love of money, not the market
He said these fuckers push on you

And freedom yells, it don't cry
Whatever selves will decide
But there's no hell when you die
So don't look so worried

He got a night life, lost his day job
Pushing papers, swinging pendulums
Anything to serve a function
Or to occupy some time

You gotta earn this living somehow
You're good as dead without a bank account
But it's funny how that life has felt down
In that unemployment line

With all that trash at his feet
The pools of piss in the street
All of that filthy empathy
For the way we're feeling

Don't worry
Don't worry

The billboards shade
The flags they wave
The anthem's playing loud
The baseball game was letting out

And all at once
You saw the dust and hurt
And turned the sound
Got in his truck and turned around

Drove out through the crowd and the cops
Drove out past that center mall
Drove out past that sickening sprawl
Out past that fenced in gold

And maybe he lost control
Fucking with the radio
But I bet the stars seem so close
At the end
At the end

Well I wish I had a parachute
Cause I'm falling mad for you
I can see the ground approaching now
But I'm not sure what to do
I feel like the pinata
Once you take a swing at me
If you could just crack the shell open
I think inside you would find something sweet
Well I hear you're like a hunter now
Your footsteps in the leaves
And I would gladly leave my hiding place
Yes I'm hoping to be seen
So let your arrow fly and sing
I'm well within your aim
Lay your traps for a thousand miles
And please don't let me escape

Winter came to Omaha
It left us looking like a bride
A million perfect snowflakes now
And no two are alike
So it's hard for me imagining
The flaws in this design
I know debris, it covers everything

Did it all get real, I guess it's real enough
They got refridgerators full of blood
Another century spent pointing guns
At anything that moves
Sometimes I worry that I've lost the plot
My twitching muscles tease my flipping thoughts
I never really dreamed of heaven much
Until we put him in the ground

But it's all I'm doing now
Listening for patterns in the sound
Of an endless static sea
But once the satellite's deceased
It blows like arbors through the streets
Of the night sky to infinity

But don't you weep (don't you weep for them)
Don't you weep (don't you weep)
There is nothing as lucky
Honey, don't you weep (don't you weep for them)
Don't you weep (don't you weep)
There is nothing as lucky, as easy, and free

Don't be a criminal in this police state
You better shop and eat and procreate
You got vacation days then you might escape
To a condo on the coast

I set my watch to the atomic clock
I watch the crowd count down til the bomb gets dropped
I always figured that there'd be time enough
I never let it get me down

But I can't help it now
Looking for faces in the clouds
I got some friends I barely see
But we're all planning to meet
We'll lay in bags as dead as leaves
All together for eternity

But don't you weep (don't you weep for them)
Don't you weep (don't you weep)
There is no one as lucky
Honey, don't you weep (don't you weep for them)
Don't you weep (don't you weep)
There is nothing as lucky, as easy, or free
Or free, or free, or free