Titus Andronicus Album

Why do you do the things you've done and how dumb would you have to be
To do them again like I know you're going to?
If you're the poet you say you are and beauty's in everything you see
Then how can love exist in a world run by people like you?

Because when there's suffering, you're there
From southern trees, you hang them in the air
The world screams out in agony and you don't care
But should the shit hit the fan, I just pray you will not be spared

Fuck you!

You took a heart with so much room for love and filled it with hatred and rage
Until there was nothing left but for it to shrivel up and die
People will tell you that if you don't love your neighbor then you don't love God
But no god of mine would put light in such unrighteous eyes

Now the way we hold each other so tight
Would look more like a noose if held up to the light
Because we betray each other in dreams every night
Now let's never speak of it again, all right?

Even now I curse the day, and yet, I think,
Few come within the compass of my curse,
Wherein I did not some notorious ill:
As kill a man, or else devise his death;
Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it;
Accuse some innocent, and forswear myself;
Set deadly enmity between two friends;
Make poor men's cattle break their necks;
Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,
And bid the owners quench them with their tears,
Oft have I digged up dead men from their graves,
And set them upright at their dear friends' doors,
Even when their sorrows almost were forgot;
And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,
Have with my knife carved in Roman letters,
Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.
Tut! I have done a thousand dreadful things
As willingly as one would kill a fly,
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
But that I cannot do ten thousand more.

(Act V, Scene i, lines 129-148 of Shakespear's Titus Andronicus)

The first thing you see is the light
Then, you focus on a man in a mask with a knife
As he cuts you away from everything you thought you knew about life
Now you're in your mother's arms, wrinkled and wet
You'll spend the rest of your life trying to hard to forget
That you met the world naked and screaming
And that's how you'll leave it

In Riverside Hospital, on a July morning
With a push and a pull - this is how I found out
I wasn't quite so invulnerable
It put the fear of God in me when I heard my daddy say,
"One mistake is all that it takes."

I ended up at Central School, 1993,
And met a certain kid named Sarim at the library
He said, "they're ain't nothing about this place that's elementary."
I learned to play the guitar in the seventh grade
In order to convince everyone I was a renegade
That's when I learned, in Glen Rock,
Everybody calls a spade a spade
I couldn't fool anyone
I couldn't even fool myself
I was just another book on the shelf, nothing else

There is nothing I've ever done
I didn't learn to be ashamed of
There is no hope or no dream
I won't curse and demean
If that's what it takes
That's what I'll do
If that's what it takes, I will
I hope I never get my fill
Of pushing this boulder up on this hill
Getting to the top and taking a spill
Every time's like the first time
Every time is the same
And maybe you don't believe me now
But you will
Until you hang upon such a cross
You won't know a thing about laughter or loss
From Galilee to Gethsemane to Golgotha
Is a short walk, a short, short walk

A band trip dance
What could be the harm
But a six week vacation from the use of my right arm?
It was just the two hits
And I remember nothing more
Only Alex hitting the switch
and me hitting the floor
We're taking this lying down
The one thing I can stand up for is resting supine on the ground
Mr. McDermott, won't you help me to my feet?
Because the drumline's going wild in the San Francisco streets

The long walk home
An hour and a half
But quickly turns to three or four with stops at every underpass
But by June 22nd
I have done the math
That's a hundred and five liters I'll consume of Dr. Path
Some girls will tell their secrets to anyone
The word "love" gets thrown around a lot near graduation
So please don't whisper sweet nothings in my ear
When the sound of shredding vocal chords is what I want to hear
Because we're going to San Francisco
And I forget to wear some flowers in my hair

She's got a secret surname
That nobody knows
With the most gorgeous hyphen
You wouldn't believe the way it glows
And I'm the only one who gets to see it way up close
So the rest of you can stick it up your nose

Last night, I had the strangest dream that I have ever known
My mother, in a fit of rage, chases me from our home
My mother, the murderer holds me down in the road
She's got the nail clippers at my throat

Now even though things lately may have been real horrorshow
I'm wishing I was back in utero
I'd like to go back to the way that things were before
But apparently, I'm looking at physical therapy
It won't be exactly how it used to be
It ain't hard to see that it's not that way
Not that way anymore
Jesus Christ is suffering upon his cross tonight
I just sit outside waiting for frost to bite
"It's always this way,"
She says on her way out the door
Just wait and see
The rest is yet to reveal itself to me

I was born into self-actualization
I knew exactly who I was
But I never got my chance to be young
So when you lay me inside of a coffin
Bury me on the side of the hill
That's a good place to get some thinking done
It didn't work out the way that I planned it
They all seem to want to take it away
Everything that I thought to be true
So it's obvious to me somebody
Somewhere must have really done a number on you
And I know because the fuckers got me too
All the pretty horseS
All flowers and trees
They will all mean less than nothing
When it all has come to be

God sent me a vision of the future
In a dream on a Saturday night
And I see no reason to celebrate
For when I saw it I wept like a child
It came to me like a knife in the chest
You and me and everyone, forever, to ache and ache and ache
So Father, if it's possible
Let this cup pass me by
But if it can't without my drinking it
Then thy will be done

Throw my guitar down on the floor
No one cares what I've got to say anymore
I didn't come here to be damned with faint praise
I'll write my masterpiece some other day
(Fuck everything, fuck me)

I'm repeating myself again
Innovation, I leave to smarter men
Pretty melodies don't fall out of the air for me
I've got to steal them from somewhere
But it doesn't matter what you do
Or how hard you try
Now there's nothing left for me to do except die
When they cut you up
And tell you that it's not going to hurt
But they are not going to stop until they see you go to sleep in the dirt

There'll be no more cigarettes
No more having sex
No more drinking until you fall on the floor
No more indie rock
Just a ticking clock
You have no time for that anymore
You better watch where you run your mouth
Because you know what they'll say to you

They'll say
Your life is over [repeat until end]

Just give me a suitcase
And I'll promise to not look back
Just point me
Point me towards the railroad track
I've been staring at the gates
But I've never found a crack
So I'm just looking up, saying
"Deliver me a heart attack."
And if you're weary
I don't mind sharing the load
Just keep me some company on the road
'Cause all I've got is a bottle
That I ought to leave alone
But it's the only thing that I can call my own
So I'm saying goodbye
And no, I won't forget to write
It's just been too long racing towards a yellow light
And I know that I say this every night
But I don't think I've ever been so tired of life
And if things should not get better
Will you wait for me to change
Or will I see you waving goodbye
From the window of an aeroplane?
If I told you it was hopeless
Would you try to understand?
Or will you leave me for a palm tree
And its shadow on the sand?
Because I've been waiting all year
For the temperature to drop
Now I've got a fever and I don't know how to make it stop
There's still one shoe that hasn't dropped yet
It's hanging on by an aglet
This world seems like a nice place to visit
But I don't want to live in it

There is not a doctor
That can diagnose me
I am dying slowly
From Patrick Stickles Disease
There is not a medication
That can cure what's ailing me
The only treatment they offer is to hang me from a tree
Life's been a long, sick game of "Would You Rather,
So now I'm going to medical school as a cadaver
And if I could say only one thing with the whole world listening,
It would be,
"Leave me the fuck alone or welcome to the Terrordome."

Oh, I recall the last morning
The sun would rise on the race of man
After which, it was clear, nothing could be the same again
When called to answer
For their crimes
The only response
That they could find
Was that it seemed to be a good idea at the time
Now the sun in the sky
Has turned to dust
The rivers are running red with blood
And the cries of the helpless are never, never enough

And those of us who were still alive
Were rightly afraid to go outside,
When VuBu said,
"This isn't shoegaze - this is suicide."
Then they came with torches and pitchforks,
Carrying guns, clubs and sharp swords,
When the loudest voice I ever heard said,
"It's over."


"And I, too, felt ready to start life all over again. It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I'd been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration."

(Albert Camus, "The Stranger" (L'Étranger))

Running around
This run-down, one-horse town
One of these days
They're gonna crucify me
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable
It is to be young, dumb, and have lots of money
We will sit upon this grassy knoll
Holding hands and stroking handguns
With pristine souls
And even my own mother will tell you
I am an asshole, but underneath it all
There is an apathetic heart of gold

So who will be saved,
From the least to the greatest men?
Because even Honest Abe
Sold poison milk to schoolchildren

The blood drive came to Glen Rock High
In a white bus with red letters on the side
And a long shiny needle
They brought to suck me dry
Like missionary mosquitoes in the sky
Now you're doing time for stealing candy
From a babe
Because all the kids in Ridgewood have got cell phones these days
And if you wear a mask
They can still read your license plate
And a wireless line
Is a terrible thing to waste
Because the more we think
The less it all makes sense
Tonight we will drink
To our general indifference
Lamb of God
We think nothing of ourselves at all
So, Death, be not proud
Because we don't give a fuck about nothing
And we only want what we are not allowed