Conor Oberst
American singer-songwriter best known for his work in Bright Eyes.
On a detox loft through a Glendale Park over sidewalk chalk
Someone wrote in red, "start over."
It's exploding bags, aerosol cans
Southbound buses, Peter Pan
They left it up to us again
I thought you knew the drill
It's kill or be killed.
Love's an excuse to get hurt and to hurt.
Do you like to hurt?
I do, I do
then hurt me.
In polaroids you were dressed in women's clothes
Were you made ashamed,
why'd you lock them in a drawer?
Well, I don't think that I ever loved you more
Alright this is a love song; I don't know if you guys are into love around here or what but.. I don't know, it's pretty rad.
So you think I need some discipline, well, I had my share. I have been sent to my room. I've been sat in a chair. I held my tongue. I didn't plug my ears. No, I got a good talking to. And now I don't know why, but I still try to smile when they talk at me like I'm just a child. Well, I'm not a child. No, I am much younger than that. And now I have read some books and have grown quite brave. If only I could just speak up I think I would say that there is no truth. There is only you and what you make the truth.
I drug your ghost across the country, and we plotted out my death.
Every city and memory we whispered "Here is where you rest."
Well I was determined in Chicago but I dug my teeth into my knees
And I settled for a telephone, sang into your machine:
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine."
I can almost listen to a whole Justin Timberlake song without cringing. I do get a bit bummed out when it comes to Ashlee Simpson though.
This one goes out to Dick Cheney and his army of satan.
So you can try and live in darkness
but you will never shake the light.
It will greet you every morning and make you more aware with its absence at night
I’ve seen a child, he's caught in the sad trap of gravity.
He falls from the lowest branch of the apple tree
and lands in the grass and weeps for his dignity.
Next time he will not aim so high.
Yeah, next time, neither will I.
The world's become a little too mean.
And me I'm in my bedroom drawing in my notebook
Because my hand thinks I'm an artist
But my heart knows I'm a poet
It's just words they mean so little to me.
But greed is a bottomless pit
And our freedom's a joke we're just taking a piss
And the whole world must watch the sad comic display
If you're still free start runnin' away
'cause we're comin' for ya!
And there's kids playing guns in the streets
And one's pointing his tree branch at me
So I put my hands up I say
"Enough is enough,
If you walk away I walk away."
And he shot me dead.
And each new act of war is tonight's entertainment.
We're still the pawns in their game.
Well morning came, and it dressed the sky in a lovely yellow gown.
Shopping malls are opening in that narrow hallway of downtown,
filled with people who are shopping for their lovers and their friends,
singing "I won't ever be lonely again"
So hurry up and run to the one that you love.
And blind him with your kindness.
And he'll make war, oh war,
On who you were before.
And he'll claim all that has spoiled in your heart.
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. Singing "I told you son, the day would come you would die, you'd die you'd die you'd die you'd die".