Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love And To Be Loved)

Artists : Bright Eyes : Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love And To Be Loved)

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,
This city's 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.
This 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's reduced to names on a shopping list
While a coroner knees beneath a gray 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 still drop in a coin
To 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 speech-writer's pen
He knows he don't have to say it
So it don't bother him
Honesty, Accuracy is just Popular Opinion
And the approval rating's 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
And we must stumble blindly forward repeating history
Well I guess we all fit onto 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!


Well 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,
Starin' so far away.
I tried talking, just whispered,
"So sorry,
So selfish."
He stopped me and said
"Child, I love you regardless.
There's nothing you could do that would ever change this.
I'm not angry, it happens.
But you just can't do it again."

And 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 God-damn 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.