Matchbook Lyrics

Drunk and indisposed, dauntless on the throne

Can't get up off this couch for karaoke

Heard this same song on the radio, driving to your grandfather's funeral

A few gunshots at the lot where Grandma took us for ice cream

Or was it fireworks in spite of the ordinance and warnings

Blew my money on model rockets and matchbooks

Churros and conchas on the roadside

About a decade later was blundering around Pittsburgh high

On steps intended for fires and furniture

Liquor like licorice, blueberries and fountain dimes

I was a firestarter then, but now I'm mostly benign

Suddenly there was passing time

Everything is blurry and brittle now

Pudgy and cramping from sleeping on the couch

Yet beds seem big and so do bottles

Struggle to sleep but quick to swallow

These pills look smaller in my hands now than they did when I was a kid

The clown chirps at the chimney sweep:

"I want that wanderlust to stop eating,

Fingertips to the nerve, perhaps they'll stop twitching

Cause they tingle when I juggle now

And my hand stiffens up like a monobrow

If I play guitar for too long it's as if I've been punching

Walls or throwing darts and dice

For days in the desert with Manhattan eyes

How did we get so old and you so blind

Knees crackle like my when my father stands

Running on concrete, trudging in sand

We've got this vicious cough and the coffee's bland"

Like a doll with a heart on either cheek

Frantic on the mandolin, atop a beachball besieged

By blazing arrows, the crowd agrees

"Though we crave grotesquery

They're really phoning it in this week"

"Release the elephant", the ringmaster howls

"I only want to your beastmaster

But the broadcasts are foreboding and cataclysmic

The ballyhoo and ballrooms will combust and subside

If we continue this charade don't know if I could sleep in your arms tonight"-

Cage unlatched, curtain dropped

Trunk shambling like a somber cross

Dragged through the dirt

The circus tent stuffy with dust and panting

The crowd divides like a sea split or a splinter through damp skin

The clown frightfully dips, beneath the bleachers

The neck of his instrument snapped and sagging

Why did I ever want to leave

Why did I ever want to leave my friend

Why did I ever want to leave

Why did I ever want to leave my friend

Why did I ever want to leave