(conor oberst/bright eyes)

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 The city's driving me out of my mind I've seen a child getting caught in that sad trap of gravity He falls from the lowest branch of the apple tree And lands in the grass, and weeps for his dignity Next time he will not aim so high Yeah next time neither will I

Now my mother takes loans out Sends her kids off to colleges Her family's reduced to names on a shopping list Well a coroner kneels beneath a great wooden crucifix He goes, 'there are 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 stood dropping a coin into 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 build this retaining wall of memory All those bold, simple choices I answer so fluently And got my grades back, and forgot just as easily But at least I got an A So I don't have them to blame So I should stop pointing fingers Reserve my judgement of all those public action figures They count their presidents So loud behind the bullhorn So proud they can't admit They may have made a mistake Well-poisoning excuse from a speechwriter's pen He knows he don't have to say it so it don't bother him Honesty, accuracy, they're just popular opinion The approval rating's high Yeah so someone's gonna die ABC, NBC, CBS bullshit They give us fact or fiction and we can't even split And each stupid act of war is tonight's entertainment We're still pawns in their game As they take eye for an eye, until no one can see And we will stumble blindly forth, repeating history Why can't we all be as useful on that flat-screen marquee Blood red and white skin knowing the blues Oh yeah the blues I got the blues That's me

Well I awoke in relief All my sheets and tubes were entangled Weak from whiskey and pills in a Chicago hospital And my father was there, in a chair by the window Staring so far away And I tried talking, just whispered, "so sorry, so selfish." He stopped me and said, 'Child, I love you regardless 'And there is nothing you could do that would ever change this 'I'm not angry, it happens, but you just can't do it again' So now I try to keep up I've been exchanging my currency One million objects pass through my periphery And 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 goddamn 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