Ocean Song

(Album: You Won't Get What You Want - 2018)

Paul eases into the driveway and kills the engine
Sits for a spell, staring out the windshield
Down the hood to the stalled garage door
"Nothing ever works around here," he says to himself
The ignition births the keys into his hand
He opens the door, the world is suddenly different
He senses something terrible awaiting
A loose thread, a worsening
In that moment he turns to the sky
He notices that it's darker now than it used to be
It's darker now at this hour, than it was last week
Within or beyond himself
A voice more primal, is urging him

To go, run, to go, run
To go, run, to go, run
Go, run, go, run
Go, run, go, run

Across the loose brick, he prepares himself for the evening greeting
But his inability to shake the warning sees him grinding his teeth
Paul turns to the right, tracing the unkempt bushes aligning the house
And the beds cracking beneath
He reaches over to uncouple the latch
And sweat forms on his brow and the back of his neck
And years of servitude are at last present;
He can feel them in his bones
And Paul is overwhelmed with the urge to cry
To crumple down to his knees and release
But pride gives him a shove
Nursing him across the muddied, neglected lawn
He inhales through his nose
"There is so much more to be done"
Stopped in his tracks
His youngest child, telling his father

To go, to run, to go, to run
To go, to run, to go, to run

He explodes through the backyard like he's shot from a gun
(Go, run, go, run)
Clearing the fence in one leap
Landing in a heap in the alley between the neighbouring houses
(Go, run, go, run)
Body broken by nothing, just falls

Knocking over trash as he makes his way
Sprinting like some wild animal
A blur beneath the streetlamps
Overhead, a terror-scream
Everything he has is within him
His shoes come up from off his feet
The shadow haunts him for several yards
The ghosts of what he was, desperate to keep up until gone
Now the road, punching upwards into his soft, naked feet
He is never-knowing, never again
Forever flowing, no more waiting
His muscles burn, deciding to run till he can run no more
To find everything he can find

To know, to see for himself
If there is an ocean beyond the waves, beyond the waves
To know, to see for himself
If there is an ocean beyond the waves, an ocean
To know, to see for himself
If there is an ocean beyond the waves, beyond the waves
To know, to see for himself
If there is an ocean beyond the waves, beyond the waves
To know, to see for himself
If there is an ocean beyond the waves, beyond the waves