My Father's Workshop Lyrics

When I was a boy

There was a room in my house I had to avoid

I can hear the noise still

The piercing sound of the drill

Sometimes I'd hear

The mechanisms slowly changing gear

I could never disturb him, when he was working

The door was always locked

To tell the truth my mind has never stopped wondering how I'd be now if I had ever knocked

I was his son

Though he said he'd never settle for one

He'd create me differently

He learned to sew, learned to weld

In that dungeon beneath our home

How I yearned to be held

But the thirst wasn't quelled

At his work he excelled

At work was his preferred place to be

Daily reminders of my inadequacy

Were to blame for his disgust

At my illiteracy

How it pained him to think

I was his blood

Then came the fist and a thud

He's worked his whole life

He built it up from the ground

In a two-bit town

So he thought he could build some more

And so in agony he built a family

One night when I thought I was alone in the house

I tried to light a fire that would never go out

I burnt it down

The screams that came from the room

They were so loud

I can still smell the fumes

The chemicals

The artificial limbs

Identical to the ones that I was born with

Melted and charred

An impossible combination

My father's heart when he saw what his creation had done

It must've split in two parts

To see his sons

As sticky ash with bones protruding

When I look back

I laugh