Candles

(Album: This Is My Dinner - 2018)

Seat 12C SAS Copenhagen to Stockholm
Stockholm would be my first choice for a European second home
Feel like I live there in another life
I dreamed that I lived in an old flat there once
And it was Christmas time
In real life, I brought home a lot of nice gifts from Sweden
A [?] from Malmö and some ice-cube trays from IKEA
And a collection of old silverware that an ex-girlfriend's father sold me from his antique shop
And she gave me a beautiful blue ceramic bowl that's still on my kitchen table

Got a lot of good memories here in Stockholm
Last time I saw Elliott Smith was at the Accelerator Festival
July 5th 2000, a beautiful sunny day
I wish I would've hugged him goodbye
But I figures I'd see him again another day
Maybe in San Francisco or L.A
But as things turned out it didn't work out that way

And my favorite restaurant in Stockholm, Sweden
Is right down the road
It's called Pelican
I like the salmon but I never eat the reindeer
Something about the idea of eating reindeer brings my eyes to tears
I don't understand how any of you can eat reindeer
When I was a little kid my favorite Christmas special was Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer
He had that stuff nose voice
And I still love Rudolph
I saw a reindeer carpaccio on the menu recently
And i wanted to shoot myself
I love you Sweden I really do
But please let the reindeer run free
For the sweetest animals kill a moose or a buffalo
If that's what you gotta do to taste gamey meat
Please leave the reindeer alone
Please pass on that reindeer dish
Please do it for me
Please grant me this one wish
Please leave the reindeer alone
Please pass on that reindeer dish
Please do it for me
Please grant me just this one wish

The first time I ever played Stockholm
A kid walked up to me on stage
And said, "Mark, do you realize that you are god in Sweden?"
I said, "You're very young and that's a foolish thing for you to say and you're tripping
Like I said you're young
You're gonna see that somebody else is gonna come along and be god in Sweden"
And later on came José González and Sigur Rós
If I die tomorrow, I'll be blurbs on online magazines for 48 hours
You'd all be fine, you'd say, "Hey I met him once and he didn't seem like he wanted to talk to me"
Then you'd say, "Look who's headlining at Roskilde? The Gorillas"

So back to Sweden and all the things I love about it
A good friend is her and I always make time for her
When she sees me I think something about me makes her glow
And when I see her something about her makes me glow
She's one of those friends I'll always know
She uplifts me and I uplift her
And that's an essential part of being on the road and being on tour
So much stress on the road and it can make you edgy
So surround yourself with the people who care about you and make you happy
Who don't bring you down and who love you unconditionally
As my lawyer says, "Never engage with crazy"
And Isaiah says, "To further yourself you gotta step over the dead bodies"

There is something to me about how sweet to me that is meditative
Everyone seems like they're on some kind of sedative
When I was a kid I loved [?]
And [?] Valium
When I'm in Sweden, I kinda feel like I'm on 5mg of Valium
Because the Swedish people, they seem like they're on Valium
Or they smoked a little bit of pot
It's in their eyes, they look so tranquil
They're like cats they don't blink a lot
Don't know if it's the darkness or if it's the things that they're eating
There's a serenity I feel whenever I'm in Sweden

I like the candles in the doorways of the hotels
I like the candles on their dinner tables
You guys put candles everywhere
You even put them in the hotel elevators
That's one of my favorite favorite things about Sweden
The candles
The candles
The candles
The candles
The candles
The candles
The candles
The candles
The candles
The candles
The candles
The candles
The candles
The candles
The candles

'Cause when I was a kid my dad wouldn't let me burn candles
I'd light incense or candles in my room
And my dad would walk up and say
"Goddamnit Mark, put those fucking candles out
You're gonna burn the whole goddamn house down"
And let me tell you a story
My dad turned out to be right
Later on in 2004 I left a candle burning beside a flower pot
It was the summer and all of the flowers were dried up
I went for a walk to the marina and back
But when I was gone, those flowers went up
And when I came home, my door was all boarded up with firewood
I broke it down, it looked like my whole apartment floor was covered in charcoal
And I looked around and my whole kitchen wall was gone
Some guys were doing construction in the building next door
And they saw the fire and they called the fire department
Luckily for me the fire department is two blocks away from my apartment
So they came and they put the fire out
Had they not been there to see it
I would surely be doing theater for a licenses in San Quentin prison
Burning an apartment down and killing a few people in America
That's called third degree murder
That's when you kill somebody
And being careless
I used to get pissed off at my dad when he'd tell me what to do
And he'd have a fit
But as it turns out with the candles he was not clowning around
He was right and not wrong
I was spaced out my head was in the clouds
And I almost burned my whole apartment building down
But the Swedes seemed to be in control of the candle situation
The Swedes are smarter and more organized than Americans
I know this isn't much of a song and the ending is even worse
It could've been better
But stewardess came around and just told me to shut my laptop off
I have more things to say in regards to how much I love Stockholm
And all the things I love about it besides candles and more clocks and doff blue ceramic bowls
But like I said, the stewardess came by and said, "Sir, please put your laptop away"
I said, "Jesus Christ, what the fuck?
I've got this huge concert tonight in Stockholm
And I have this perfect song I was going to sing to my audience"
She said, "Sir, please put it away now"
I say "Okay, goddamnit"
And I close my laptop down
And that's my unfinished song
From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm
And this is my unfinished song
From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm
And this is my unfinished song
From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm
And this is my incomplete song
From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm
And this is my incomplete song
From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm
And this is my incomplete song
From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm
And this is my incomplete song
From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm
And this is my incomplete song
From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm
And this is my incomplete song
From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm
And this is my incomplete song
From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines from Copenhagen to Stockholm

And this is my unfinished song
From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm
And this is my incomplete song
From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm
And this is my incomplete song
From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm
And this is my incomplete song
From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm
And this is my incomplete song
From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm