Life's For The Living

(album: All The Little Lights - 2012)

Well grey clouds wrapped round the town like elastic
Cars stood like toys made of Taiwanese plastic
The boy laughed at the spastic dancing around in the rain
While laundrettes cleaned clothes, high heals rub toes
Puddles splashed huddles of bus stop crows
Dressed in their suits and their boots well they all look the same

I took myself down to the cafe to find all the boys lost in books and crackling vinyl
And carved out a poem above the urinal that read
Don't you cry for the lost
Smile for the living
Get what you need and give what you're given
Life's for the living so live it
Or you're better off dead

While the evening pulled the moon out of it's packet
Stars shone like buttons on an old man's jacket
We needed a nail but we tacked it 'til it fell of the wall

While pigeon's pecked trains, sparks flew like planes
The rain showed the rainbows in the oil stains
And we all had new iPhones but no one had no one to call

And I stumbled down to the stomach of the town
Where the widow takes memories to slowly drown
With a hand to the sky and a mist in her eye she said
Don't you cry for the lost
Smile for the living
Get what you need and give what you're given
Life's for the living so live it
Or you're better off dead

Well I'm sick of this town, this blind man's forage
They take your dreams down and stick them in storage
You can have them back son when you've paid off your mortgage and loans
Oh hell with this place, I'll go it my own way
I'll stick out my thumb and I trudge down the highway
Someday someone must be going my way home

Till then I'll make my bed from a disused car
With a mattress of leaves and a blanket of stars
And I'll stitch the words into my heart with a needle and thread
Don't you cry for the lost
Smile for the living
Get what you need and give what you're given
You know life's for the living so live it
Or you're better off dead

Don't you cry for the lost
Smile for the living
Get what you need and give what you're given
Life's for the living so live it
Or you're better off dead