Excerpt, Chapter 8: “Perfect Strangers” Lyrics

Before they were famous

Even long after they remained lovers

In honeymoon suites, rooftops

Railyards and gas station restrooms

The world seemed so vast once

Time passed, malevolent and slower

Clenched in the fist like a piece of glass

Clinging at each other's breasts and forearms

When all the colors of the night

Get lost within the frame

Each brick in the dollhouse could use a fresh coat of paint

And they're holding hands

Clandestine, calm and quaint

In long, lonely aisles

That we'd be lucky to walk someday

I want to be anything but

Now that we're famous

Baby we're boring and lonesome

Let's ditch California

The West is not near enough wasted nor loathsome

Tarantulas and Janus

Are tugged along by strings and strawmen

Let's murder Lucio and Casey the actors

And maybe yet save the person

When all the colors of the night

Are refracted in prisms and panes

Smile or snarl for the cameras

They've always looked at us the same

In long lonely aisles or jumping off the page

They'll build us cathedrals only to be razed

I want to be anywhere but here

Before they were famous

They were simply perfect strangers

Changing channels with the bloodlust

To long after the cue, ignore "exit stage-left"

Now that they're famous

Young, rich and frighteningly aimless

Might love each other a little less

But what they can't give another

They make up for in excess

Cause the world seemed so vast once

Confined with each season but never any closer

We only get as far as our two left feet

Baby I don't want to feel this sober