Okkervil River Album

It’s just a bad movie, where there’s no crying
handing the key to me in this Red Lion,
where the lock that you locked in the suite says there’s no prying.
When the breath that you breathed in the street screams there’s no science.
When you look how you looked then to me, then I cease lying and fall into silence.

It’s just a life story, so there’s no climax.
No more new territory, so pull away the imax.
In the slot that you sliced through the scene there was no shyness.
In the plot that you passed through your teeth there was no pity.
No fade in: film begins on a kid in the big city.
And no cut to a costly parade (that’s for him only!).
No dissolve to a sliver of grey (that’s his new lady!)
where she glows just like grain on the flickering pane of some great movie.


It’s just a house burning, but it’s not haunted.
It was your heart hurting, but not for long, kid.
In the socket you spin from with ease there is no sticking.
From the speakers your fake masterpiece is serenely dribbling.
When the air around your chair fills with heat, that’s the flames licking
beneath the clock on the clean mantelpiece. It’s got a calm clicking,
like a pro at his editing suite takes two weeks stitching up some bad movie.

What gives this mess some grace unless it's kicks, man
Unless it's fiction
Unless it's sweat or it's songs

What hits against this cheat unless it's a sick man's hand
From some midlevel band
He's been driving too long

On a dark windless night
With the stereo on
With the towns flying by
And the ground getting soft

And the sound in the sky
Coming down from above
It surrounds you at times
And it's whispering, oh

What pulls your body down, that is quicksand
So, we climb out quick, hand over hand
For your mouth's all filled up

What picks you up from down unless it's tricks, man
When I been fixed, I am convinced that I will not get so broke up again

And on a seven day high
That heavenly song
Punches right through my mind
And pumps through my blood

And, oh, it's a lie
But I still give my love
And my heart's all alive(?)
For your hands to pluck off

What gives this mess some grace unless it's fictions
Unless it's licks, man
Unless it's lies or it's love

What breaks this heart the most is the ghost of some rock and roll fan
Exploding up from the stands
With her heart opened up
And I want to tell her, "your love isn't lost"
Say, "my heart is still crossed"
Scream, "you're so wonderful"
What a dream in the dark
About working so hard
About growing so stoned
Trying not to turn up
Trying not to believe in the light

On your own
La la la la
Ohhh oh ohh

I'm the band in a show bout a man holding hands with his wife
On a therapist couch with his face to the crowd, always fucking around countless nights
And there's this one episode, close-up cameras were showing him crying
His red head and his red eyes

I'm the band in a show bout a boy being buried alive
From his head to his toes by a criminal but with a sensitive soul with a set of raccoon eyes
And there's this scene in the show when a hustler knows he's gonna die
The ground opens and he climbs inside

And as he speaks his last line, a thought falls from his mind and I pick it up and write it through the tv
Oh, oh
Is there a hand to take hold of the scene?

I'm a man in a dream and they're dancing in front of my eyes
Is the queen informed of the flaws with the eyes all got odd and ruppled into her spine
She rises up like a young group, from a heart like a claw, splits apart like a jaw, like an eye
And she asks me with a sigh

We were so far from right
We were using the fight
We were letting the light weaken it's beam
Oh, oh
Is there a hand to take hold of the scene?

I wanted to smile like a glistening shot of a kiss that's as sharp as a knife
The day expires
In the dry, cracked, trembling lips [...?] but this gets inside
I lift them up to you, I'd like to bear witness to our life that is fine and is filling the cryingest eyes
Gracing each face that is making the waste that is broken as one's fairly fly
Love that is in us, of that ol' cynical covetest, cancerous vibe
And a beauty that annihilates all life

Like it's lived in these nights, holding your hatred tight
Like a sign that should [...?] you strong
When all the doors are shut tight, I will dream you tonight
And my dream will just sweep you along
When all the fires are fanned, we'll shout you our plans
And we're too weak to stand on our two feet
Oh, oh
Is there a hand to take hold of this scene?

Midnight, late last week
My daughter's diary
Didn't know what it might be 'til it was open

I only read one page
And then put it away
Talk about your big mistakes
Hey, Shan, nice going

Photos show no tears
And her eyes, all those pretty years gone by
I just cannot believe could do that to a child
A child
A child

Shannon just flew down
Four days back in town
She sleeps and lies around and then she goes up
And then one day, she's gone
What should I have done?
Joe turns the tv on with all the lights out

Photos on the wall
She's my baby
She's my baby doll
Is she someone I don't know at all?
Is she someone I betrayed?

It's a great day in the fall
And the radio's singing down the hall
And I rise to turn it off cause all I'm seeing is her face
Age 8
8

No one wants to hear about your 97th tear
So dry your eyes or let it go uncried, my dear
I am all out of love to mouth and to your ear
And not above letting a love song disappear before it's written

And no one wants a tune about the 100th luftballoon that was seen shooting from the window of your room
To be a spot against the sky's colossal gloom
And land deflated in some neighbor's state that's strewn with 99 others

8 chinese brothers
Well, there's a reason why the last is smiling wide and sitting higher than the others
Swinging his arms

You would probably die before you shot up 9 miles high
Your eyes dilated as light played upon the sight
Of TVC16 as it sings you goodnight
Relaxed as hell and locked up in cell 45
I hope you're feeling better

51st way to leave your lover
Admittedly, it doesn't seem to be as gentle or as clean as all the others
Even a scars all in the after hours of some Greenpoint bar

I told you, I can't listen, baby, 'bout the 4th time you were a lady and how your forthrightness betrayed a secret shyness
Stripped away by days of being hailed as "your highness"
And what's new pussycat, as you were once a lionness
They cut your claws out

Kitten, not everyone's keen on lighting candle 17, the party's done, the cake's all gone, the plates are clean
The chauffeur's near and from the cheerless mezzanine
And in just one year, this straight world could pay to see what they have been missing

You were caught kissing 8 chinese brothers
Well, there's a reason why the last is smiling wide and sitting higher than the others
Staking with charm

And he says, "Lets get lost, let them send out alarms
He says, "Let's get crossed out and come to harm"
"Lets make the world's stupidest stand and truly mean it
Lets hit the limit of loss over lover's arms
No, lets exceed it"

Let fall your soft and swaying skirt
Let fall your shoes
Let fall your shirt
I'm not the ladykilling sort
Enough to hurt
A girl in port

Marie's gone blonde
And lost a stone
She lay on her lawn
Spun and alone
And when the morning sun, it rose
Upon Marie
And her lacy clothes

Well, it lit her up
And she walked around
The winding streets
Camdon town
Well, she don't know who
She wants to be
And if I knew
I'd tell Marie

Let fall your soft and swaying skirt
Let fall your shoes
Let fall your shirt
I'm not the ladykilling sort
Enough to hurt
A girl in port

And Cindy tells me she's had fun
Sitting back stage
Someone's plus one
Up in her room
The records spin
Needle in the grooves
That she's worn thin

Well, she lifts her sleeve
And she sees a name
And she's got a smile on her face
And she's got a story you can't see
Well, that's just between that name and Cindy

And before Holly made her way
Over the sea
And far away
She's telling me
Inside her car
Driving us back
From the Crystal Corner bar

I lost her there
I fell from hell
Cut some fresh pieces from myself
Then for a second
Something in me
Said leave today
It's time, Holly
It's time

Oh, I'm a weak and lonely sort
Though I'm not sailing just for sport
I've come to feel
Out on the sea
These urgent lives
Press against me
I'm just aghast
I'm not a part
My tender head
With my easy heart
These several years out on the sea
Made me empty, cold, and clear
Pour yourself into me

Let fall your soft and swaying skirt
Let fall your shoes
Let fall your shirt
I'm not the ladykilling sort
Enough to hurt
A girl in port

This week's cash
For last week's grass
You [coo-ka-late?]
Or you sit in the van and wait

Gassed and trashed and smashed
Your cat's roasting away
So, on a sunny summer day, oh, we're okay
An August night anyway

And you're living on air
Well, on the 25th floor up there
They fan a million bucks before your face
Marie's passed out in a chair
With they once fussed over her hair
All must end too and I've just been fucked [...?]
Just an hour before she crashed
All the cash
She said "I'm done with looking back"
And you look your age
Which is 37, by the way
And I'm 28
Fucking let them stare
Cause at this point, I don't care
I have been your bride stripped bare since '98
And our silver screen affair
It weighs less to me than air
It's a gas now, it's a laugh just how far several mil' can take it

This week's fast is last week's flash of interstate
When you starved and never ate
This week's flashed a sick gold cast across your face
As you roam on silk, we'll tippy-toe alone through silver lay
As you stride a snow white mare
On a non-stop all-night tear/terror
What a ghastly sight you'll smear in every face
And that […?] affair
That your lawyer lets you wear
You'll destroy your chance to ever get repeatedly engaged

All of the stage names evaporate
And it's just a blood flushed and heart-rushing rates
Either to kick off too soon or stick around too late, to be far too dear or too cut-rate
Hold my hand again
Like at the lake

Hold that mirror, babe
Up to my face
Hear the whippoorwill
Am I breathing still?

A Hollywood Babylon bike-athon for breakdancers all broken down into their beds
Now intravenously feed
From a bag hanging over their heads
Can I put you down for some miles?
What do you say?
Cause don't you know, it's going to be a long, long way
But if you've got the cash
I'm ready to bust my ass

So, take this thin broken down circus clown reject and give her the name of a queen
Don't I know her from the mezzanine?
She didn't look like no princess to me
But with the proper words
Bestowed
And with her morning shoot
Her evening clothes
Don't call her a prostitute
Well, she ain't one of those
Just call her a proper little statue
Come unfroze

By the second verse, dear friends
My head will burst, my life will end
So, I'd like to start this one off by saying
"Live and love"

I was young and at home in bed
And I was hanging on the words some poem said
And thirty-one
I was impressionable
I was upsettable

I tried to make my breathing stop, my heart beat slow
So, when my mom and John came in, I would be cold

From a bridge on Washington Avenue, the year of 1972
Broke my bones and skull and it was memorable
It was half a second and I was halfway down
Do you think I wanted to turn back around and teach a class
Where you kiss the ass that I've exposed to you

And at the funeral, the University
Cried at three poems they'd present in place of a broken me

I was breaking in a case of suds
At the brass rail, a fall-down drunk with his tongue torn out and his balls removed
And I knew that my last lines were gone while stupidly I lingered on, other wise men know when it's time to go
And so I should, too

And so I fly into the brightest winter sun
Of this frozen town, I'm stripped down to move on
My friends, I'm gone

Well, I hear my father fall
And I hear my mother call
And I hear the others all whisper, "Come home"
I'm sorry to go
I loved you all so
But this is the worst trip I've ever been on

So, hoist up the John B. sail
(Hoist up the John B. sail)
See how the main sail sets
(See how the main sail sets)
I've folded my heart in my head and I wanna go home
With a book in my hand
In the way I had planned
Well, this is the worst trip I've ever been on

Hoist up the John B. sail
(Hoist up the John B. sail)
See how the main sail sets
(See how the main sail sets)
I've folded my heart in my head and I wanna go home
With a book in each hand
(With a book in each hand)
In the way I had planned
(In the way I had planned)
I feel so broke up
I wanna go home