Let's Not Shit Ourselves (to Love and to Be Loved)

Here we go Can I get a goddamn timpani roll To start this goddamn song? Tonight Here's a goddamn song For all you goddamn people Well, the animals laugh from the dark of the wilderness A baby cries hard in an apartment complex As I pass in a car buried under the influence The city is driving me out of my mind 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 Now a mother takes loans out, sends her kids off to colleges Her family is reduced to names on a shopping list While a coroner kneels beneath a great wooden crucifix He knows there's worse things than being alone And so I've learned to retreat at the first sign of danger I mean why wait around if it's just to surrender? And ambition, I've found, can lead only to failure I do not read the reviews No, I am not singing for you Well, I stood dropping a coin into the pit of a well And I would throw my whole billfold if I thought it would help With all these wishes I make, I should buy something real At least a telephone call home Well, my teachers, they built this retaining wall of memory All those multiple choices I answered so quickly And got my grades back and forgot just as easily But at least I got an A And so I don't have them to blame Well, I should stop pointing fingers Reserve my judgment of all those public action figures The cowboy presidents So loud behind the bullhorn, so proud they can't admit When they've made a mistake While poison ink spews from a speechwriter's pen He knows he don't have to say it so it It don't bother him Honesty, accuracy is just popular opinion And the approval rating is high And so someone's gonna die Well, ABC, NBC, CBS - bullshit They give us fact or fiction, I guess an even split And each new act of war is tonight's entertainment We're still the pawns in their game As they take eye for an eye Until no one can see We must stumble blindly forth repeating history Well, I guess we all fit into your slogan on that fast food marquee Red blooded, white skinned, oh and the blues Oh and the blues, I got the blues, that's me! (That's me!) That's me! Woah! I awoke in relief My sheets and tubes were all tangled Weak from whiskey and pills in a Chicago hospital And my father was there in a chair by the window Staring so far away I tried talking, just whispered "So sorry, so selfish" He stopped me and said, "Child, I love you regardless There is nothing you could do that would ever change this I'm not angry, it happens... But you just can't do it again" So now I try to keep up I've been exchanging my currency While a million objects pass through my periphery Now I'm rubbing my eyes 'Cause they're starting to bother me I've been staring too long at the screen But where was it when I first heard That sweet sound of humility? It came to my ears in the goddamn loveliest melody How grateful I was then, to be part of the mystery To love and to be loved Let's just hope that is enough