Song | Shout the Battle Cry for Freedom |
Artist | Adam Gnade |
Album | Run Hide Retreat Surrender |
Download | Image LRC TXT |
Fuck your deadlines. Fuck your editors. Fuck friends. | |
Fuck responsibility. Fuck living long. Fuck getting up in the morning. | |
Fuck writing the big things. | |
The wine bottle is rising from between your legs | |
like a dark-glassed lighthouse and you laugh, | |
your teeth slop red-black of wine and crooked smile. | |
With late winter comes spiders in your synapses; | |
skittering down brain tubes to eat at happiness, | |
ideas, sex drive, energy, ambition, | |
passion—youth gone shriveled and frozen | |
like rock gravel crunching beneath your sneakers and you're walking to that mine that killed your great-grandfather, | |
black-lunged Pennsylvania coal mine, | |
its mouth empty and fanged, and its throat runs straight down. | |
Shadowed reapers crouch on wheelbarrowed mine tracks or lie lurking in mine cars, phantom great-grandfathers, black-eyed, Slavic, square-faced, gray-haired, beckoning with crook of finger saying, | |
\"Have a drink with me, kid. What's taken you so long?\" | |
She goes distant in January. | |
\"You haven't been happy in months,\" she says. | |
\"I don't know what's wrong with me,\" you say. | |
\"I feel like a bird in a cage,\" she says. | |
\"Nothing I once loved makes me happy anymore,\" you say. | |
\"You need to go to the doctor,\" she says. | |
\"I feel like I'm losing it,\" you say. | |
\"We need to get out of this city,\" she says. | |
\"I feel like I've got a demon in my head,\" you say. | |
\"What do you need me for anymore?\" she says. | |
\"I feel like I'm already dead,\" you say. | |
\"You're so selfish,\" she says. | |
\"Don't leave me,\" you say. | |
\"I feel like getting in a car and driving away,\" she says. | |
Don't leave me, don't leave me, you don't leave me, | |
don't you leave me, don't leave. | |
At night, at clubs and bars, you drink with friends. | |
They buy you drinks because your name is in the magazines they read. | |
But she's off with the older kids across the club, | |
in the back of the bar, the ones who've figured it out … | |
while you seek the dark spots and rotting, | |
doomed faces destined to grow old and sit in hospital beds | |
connected to tubes and wires, | |
yellow piss bags, sludged shit, coughing a paint can rattle, | |
wondering if it was worth it and whether they could've done better. | |
You go home and drink more. | |
Drink 'til everything goes muffled | |
and warm and good and you sing to yourself and rock happy | |
and alone on the couch. | |
Then comes chill of dawn with light over purple hills | |
to the east and you pull the covers back up; | |
your face is a swollen mess. | |
With spring comes a thaw of her heart. | |
She's driving you to go wild, to be good and be crazy. | |
You're fighting it though, eating the pills Dr. Chang gave you, | |
but faking happy every night. | |
She knows it's not working. | |
And you read religious text—the Bible, Koran or fictionalized tales of End Times, Thich Nhat Hanh, giddy Buddhist koans, Krishna, book of Mormon, the Torah. | |
You look for something to lead you from the dark. | |
You wear the pants and sweaters and shirts of an old man. | |
You shake your pill bottle and toss it in your jacket pocket. | |
Your muscles fade and flesh falls off the bone, | |
drops like fruit gone to rot. | |
She tries one last time, | |
singing the old songs, singing, | |
\"Come away with me. I've already quit that job. | |
We'll finish off the bottle and the agaves too. | |
Take a look around; everybody is sad as you. | |
All we need are Dos Gusanos this afternoon\" | |
and you're fading fast. | |
You hold her hand as you walk past 7-11 and say, | |
\"Okay, okay sorry, so selfish, let's go, okay let's go. | |
Let's just go, okay, okay.\" |
Fuck your deadlines. Fuck your editors. Fuck friends. | |
Fuck responsibility. Fuck living long. Fuck getting up in the morning. | |
Fuck writing the big things. | |
The wine bottle is rising from between your legs | |
like a darkglassed lighthouse and you laugh, | |
your teeth slop redblack of wine and crooked smile. | |
With late winter comes spiders in your synapses | |
skittering down brain tubes to eat at happiness, | |
ideas, sex drive, energy, ambition, | |
passion youth gone shriveled and frozen | |
like rock gravel crunching beneath your sneakers and you' re walking to that mine that killed your greatgrandfather, | |
blacklunged Pennsylvania coal mine, | |
its mouth empty and fanged, and its throat runs straight down. | |
Shadowed reapers crouch on wheelbarrowed mine tracks or lie lurking in mine cars, phantom greatgrandfathers, blackeyed, Slavic, squarefaced, grayhaired, beckoning with crook of finger saying, | |
" Have a drink with me, kid. What' s taken you so long?" | |
She goes distant in January. | |
" You haven' t been happy in months," she says. | |
" I don' t know what' s wrong with me," you say. | |
" I feel like a bird in a cage," she says. | |
" Nothing I once loved makes me happy anymore," you say. | |
" You need to go to the doctor," she says. | |
" I feel like I' m losing it," you say. | |
" We need to get out of this city," she says. | |
" I feel like I' ve got a demon in my head," you say. | |
" What do you need me for anymore?" she says. | |
" I feel like I' m already dead," you say. | |
" You' re so selfish," she says. | |
" Don' t leave me," you say. | |
" I feel like getting in a car and driving away," she says. | |
Don' t leave me, don' t leave me, you don' t leave me, | |
don' t you leave me, don' t leave. | |
At night, at clubs and bars, you drink with friends. | |
They buy you drinks because your name is in the magazines they read. | |
But she' s off with the older kids across the club, | |
in the back of the bar, the ones who' ve figured it out | |
while you seek the dark spots and rotting, | |
doomed faces destined to grow old and sit in hospital beds | |
connected to tubes and wires, | |
yellow piss bags, sludged shit, coughing a paint can rattle, | |
wondering if it was worth it and whether they could' ve done better. | |
You go home and drink more. | |
Drink ' til everything goes muffled | |
and warm and good and you sing to yourself and rock happy | |
and alone on the couch. | |
Then comes chill of dawn with light over purple hills | |
to the east and you pull the covers back up | |
your face is a swollen mess. | |
With spring comes a thaw of her heart. | |
She' s driving you to go wild, to be good and be crazy. | |
You' re fighting it though, eating the pills Dr. Chang gave you, | |
but faking happy every night. | |
She knows it' s not working. | |
And you read religious text the Bible, Koran or fictionalized tales of End Times, Thich Nhat Hanh, giddy Buddhist koans, Krishna, book of Mormon, the Torah. | |
You look for something to lead you from the dark. | |
You wear the pants and sweaters and shirts of an old man. | |
You shake your pill bottle and toss it in your jacket pocket. | |
Your muscles fade and flesh falls off the bone, | |
drops like fruit gone to rot. | |
She tries one last time, | |
singing the old songs, singing, | |
" Come away with me. I' ve already quit that job. | |
We' ll finish off the bottle and the agaves too. | |
Take a look around everybody is sad as you. | |
All we need are Dos Gusanos this afternoon" | |
and you' re fading fast. | |
You hold her hand as you walk past 711 and say, | |
" Okay, okay sorry, so selfish, let' s go, okay let' s go. | |
Let' s just go, okay, okay." |
Fuck your deadlines. Fuck your editors. Fuck friends. | |
Fuck responsibility. Fuck living long. Fuck getting up in the morning. | |
Fuck writing the big things. | |
The wine bottle is rising from between your legs | |
like a darkglassed lighthouse and you laugh, | |
your teeth slop redblack of wine and crooked smile. | |
With late winter comes spiders in your synapses | |
skittering down brain tubes to eat at happiness, | |
ideas, sex drive, energy, ambition, | |
passion youth gone shriveled and frozen | |
like rock gravel crunching beneath your sneakers and you' re walking to that mine that killed your greatgrandfather, | |
blacklunged Pennsylvania coal mine, | |
its mouth empty and fanged, and its throat runs straight down. | |
Shadowed reapers crouch on wheelbarrowed mine tracks or lie lurking in mine cars, phantom greatgrandfathers, blackeyed, Slavic, squarefaced, grayhaired, beckoning with crook of finger saying, | |
" Have a drink with me, kid. What' s taken you so long?" | |
She goes distant in January. | |
" You haven' t been happy in months," she says. | |
" I don' t know what' s wrong with me," you say. | |
" I feel like a bird in a cage," she says. | |
" Nothing I once loved makes me happy anymore," you say. | |
" You need to go to the doctor," she says. | |
" I feel like I' m losing it," you say. | |
" We need to get out of this city," she says. | |
" I feel like I' ve got a demon in my head," you say. | |
" What do you need me for anymore?" she says. | |
" I feel like I' m already dead," you say. | |
" You' re so selfish," she says. | |
" Don' t leave me," you say. | |
" I feel like getting in a car and driving away," she says. | |
Don' t leave me, don' t leave me, you don' t leave me, | |
don' t you leave me, don' t leave. | |
At night, at clubs and bars, you drink with friends. | |
They buy you drinks because your name is in the magazines they read. | |
But she' s off with the older kids across the club, | |
in the back of the bar, the ones who' ve figured it out | |
while you seek the dark spots and rotting, | |
doomed faces destined to grow old and sit in hospital beds | |
connected to tubes and wires, | |
yellow piss bags, sludged shit, coughing a paint can rattle, | |
wondering if it was worth it and whether they could' ve done better. | |
You go home and drink more. | |
Drink ' til everything goes muffled | |
and warm and good and you sing to yourself and rock happy | |
and alone on the couch. | |
Then comes chill of dawn with light over purple hills | |
to the east and you pull the covers back up | |
your face is a swollen mess. | |
With spring comes a thaw of her heart. | |
She' s driving you to go wild, to be good and be crazy. | |
You' re fighting it though, eating the pills Dr. Chang gave you, | |
but faking happy every night. | |
She knows it' s not working. | |
And you read religious text the Bible, Koran or fictionalized tales of End Times, Thich Nhat Hanh, giddy Buddhist koans, Krishna, book of Mormon, the Torah. | |
You look for something to lead you from the dark. | |
You wear the pants and sweaters and shirts of an old man. | |
You shake your pill bottle and toss it in your jacket pocket. | |
Your muscles fade and flesh falls off the bone, | |
drops like fruit gone to rot. | |
She tries one last time, | |
singing the old songs, singing, | |
" Come away with me. I' ve already quit that job. | |
We' ll finish off the bottle and the agaves too. | |
Take a look around everybody is sad as you. | |
All we need are Dos Gusanos this afternoon" | |
and you' re fading fast. | |
You hold her hand as you walk past 711 and say, | |
" Okay, okay sorry, so selfish, let' s go, okay let' s go. | |
Let' s just go, okay, okay." |