A Song To Pass The Time

(album: Fevers And Mirrors - 2000)

There is a middle-aged woman she's dragging her feet.
She carries baskets of clothes to a laundromat.
While the Mexican children kick rocks into the street
And they laugh in a language I don't understand.
But I love them.
Why do I love them?
So the neighborhood is dimming as I smoke on the porch
And watch the people as they pass enclosed inside their cars.
On their faces just anger or disappointment.
I start wishing there was something I could offer them.
A consolation, what could I offer them?
And they are sad in their suburbs robots water the lawn
And everything they touch gets dusted spotless.
And so they start to believe they've not touched anything at all.
And the cars in the driveway only multiply.
They are lost in their houses.
I have heard them sing in the shower
Making speeches to their sister on the telephone.
Saying, you come home.
Woman, you come here.
Don't stay so far away from me.
This weather has me wanting love more tangible.
Something I can hold cause it's getting cold.
I say hold up our fists to the flame in the sky
To block out the light that's reaching for our eyes
Cause it... cause it would blind us. Yeah it will blind us.
Well, I've locked my actions in the grooves of routine.
So I may never be free of this apathy.
But I wait for a letter that is coming to me.
She sends me pictures of the ocean in an envelope.
So there still is hope.
Yes, I can be healed.
There is someone looking for what I've concealed
In my secret drawer, in my pockets deep,
You will find the reasons that I can't sleep and you will still want me.
But will you still want me? Will you still want?...
Well, I say come for the week.
You can sleep in my bed.
And pass through my life like a dream through my head.
It will... it will be easy. I'll make it easy.
But all I have for the moment is a song to pass the time.
A melody to keep me from worrying.
Oh, some simple progression to keep my fingers busy.
And words that are sure to come back to me
And they'll be laughing, and they'll be laughing.
My mediocrity.
My mediocrity.
(And they'll be laughing)