Going For The Gold

(album: Don't Be Frightened Of Turning The Page - 2001)

There's a voice on the phone
telling what had happened,
some kind of confusion
more like a disaster.
And it wondered how you were left unaffected,
but you had no knowledge.
No, the chemicals covered you.
So a jury was formed
as more liquor was poured.
No need for conviction,
they're not thirsting for justice.
But I slept with the lies I keep inside my head.
I found out I was guilty.
I found out I was guilty.
But I won't be around for the sentencing,
cause I'm leaving
on the next airplane.
And though I know that my actions are impossible to justify
they seem adequate to fill up my time.
But if I could talk to myself
like I was someone else,
well then maybe I could take your advice,
and I wouldn't act like such an asshole all the time.

There's a film on the wall,
makes the people look small
who are sitting beside it,
all consumed in the drama.
They must return to their lives once the hero has died.
They will drive to the office
stopping somewhere for coffee,
where the folk singers, poets and playwrights convene,
dispensing their wisdom,
Oh dear amateur orators.

They will detail their pain
In some standard refrain.
They will recite their sadness
Like it's some kind of contest.
Well, if it is, I think I am winning it,
All beaming with confidence
as I make my final lap.
The gold medal gleams
so hang it around my neck
cause I am deserving it:
the champion of idiots.

But a kid carries his walkman on that long bus ride to Omaha.
I know a girl who cries when she practices violin.
Cause each note sounds so pure, it just cuts into her,
and then the melody comes pouring out her eyes.
Now to me, everything else, it just sounds like a lie