Nightclothes – Lyrics

Almost Alright

The thing about white male privilege, he said,
Is how it hides in plain sight, like air
You might not even know that you know it’s there
But you’re breathing in and out forever, thriving on it, unaware

And who is to blame? I’m ashamed, he said
And at the same time I was born into this
Is it enough to give it a name, pull back the veil and trust
Although the arc is long someday it’s going to get around to bending towards justice?

Justice, bending towards justice

And what about you, he said, you have a platform to speak
But you’ve barely stirred the dust, are you afraid? Are you weak?
Or so immersed in your inner world that the rest is immaterial
Why ramble in abstractions when you could use your platform to say something real?

Something real, talk about something real

I live in a glass house, I said. My political capital is minimal
How can I take on the world and be credible?
Fear and weakness are my expertise; it’s just a place to start
I can only speak from my own flawed heart

Flawed heart, I can only speak from my own…

And who is listening to me anyway? I loved the music business more than it loved me
I’m not afraid of working hard. I had to find my way.
But the things I’ve done just to get by would make you cry
Why would anybody listen to what I have to say?

Then it was closing time. The lights above the bar went dark
I could see how it might play out; we’d be drawn together by some random spark
Then held together working out the things about ourselves that we despise
His entitlement, my insecurity, his need to control, my ability to justify his lies

Justify his lies

Once upon a time I’d have surrendered to the fairy tale
In the off chance he was the needle in the hay that lasts forever
But that’s not how this story goes, in this story I’m already saying goodnight
And walking away feeling almost wise and almost sorry and almost alright

Almost alright, almost sorry, almost sad, almost human, and almost alright

Paper

I am made from paper
Fold an airplane, I fly for real
Crumple into missile, I seem more substantial
Than I feel

Paper
Paper
Paper

Paper, with a message
Lost to disappearing ink
Strike a match, I curl to ash
In the kitchen sink

Paper
Paper
Paper

Cut from folded paper
Into dolls, joined at the fist
A string of dolls each like the other
Girls you kissed
Paper

I am made from paper
Fragile husk, paper thin
So lightly here I disappear
On a breath of wind

Paper
Paper
Paper

Paris

All I want from Paris
Is a quiet and mysterious
Lover who’ll be
An empty page
On which I’ll write my masterpiece
Over a long weekend

We’ll cross Pont St Michel
So intertwined
We become a quadruped
And then we will cross back again
Because we are going nowhere
And we have a long weekend to get there

He’ll say “Je ne comprends pas”
And I won’t understand
But he’ll reach for my hand
And the plot will expand
On a long weekend
With a view of the Seine
From a rooftop terrace
In Paris, France

All I really want
Is a mysterious lover
Whose unspoken words
Spill cover to cover
When our long weekend
Is over

Elephant

There’s an elephant in the room.
The elephant takes all the air
I feel scared
And small, and irrelevant
Trying not to think about an elephant .

The elephant in the room, I didn’t see it coming
But how in hell could I have missed it?
I was looking toward a distant
Beautiful world, blue and benevolent
I didn’t want to think about an elephant

Somewhere there’s a river
Flowing as it has forever
Through daybreak, and nightfall,
Through the turning seasons
On and on throughout history,
On and on until you trust
That the river is going to flow forever
And it flows towards justice

There’s an elephant that’s taking all the air in the room
I am not thinking clearly
But I’m here
And the truth is self-evident
Try not to think about an elephant

Book of Cliches

It was not love, I know that much
I just don’t have a name for it
I was brought into the world as an apology
For a broken promise, then blamed for it

I took the wrong medicine. It didn’t make me happy
No one could keep up. It’s a run no one can win
But we tried, then drifted apart
Drifted back together then drifted again

I would write my sorry story, but it’s random and disjointed
Like I opened the big book of clichés and just pointed
And you’ve heard it all before. You’ve heard it all before.
You’ve heard it all, but I’m just getting started

Found you at one of those parties, then later
Lost you at another, our worn-out joke:
It was all the same party, it went on and on
On and on and on until we broke

You were going somewhere before your lost years, you lost years
Take one, take two, take five
And that’s how it goes, the chance won’t come again
But hey, it’s enough you survived

I could write my sorry story, but it’s random and disjointed
Like I opened the big book of clichés and just pointed
And you’ve heard it all before. You’ve heard it all before
You’ve heard it all, and I’m just getting started

I had keys in my pocket, so I drove and drove and drove
Until I found a little park at the dead end of a street
Resting my head on the news of the day
I slept half beneath a hedge until a cop kicked my feet

So I was drinking ice-cold coke from a little green glass bottle
While the sky went from purple to crimson and yellow
Thinking, how dare the world be so beautiful
I’m hurt and I’m angry then, oh!

I would write my sorry story, but it’s random and disjointed
Like I opened the big book of clichés and just pointed
And you’ve heard it all before. You’ve heard it all before
You’ve heard it all, but I’m just getting started
And you’ve heard it all in the book of cliches
But I’m just getting started, I can go on for days
All the cruel and broken, the cold and hardhearted
I’m just getting started…

Mechanical Monkey

Mechanical monkey in a junkyard
Was it dumped there? No, it runs the place
Taking inventory, raking in the cash
Monkey was made talking trash

The king of one-liners did not get the joke
It was at his expense. And he was broke
He looks at me funny; hey, you think money is laughable?
And when you hold out your hand is it entirely transactional?

Mechanical monkey in a junkyard
Think it was dumped there you’d be wrong, it runs the place
Taking inventory, raking in the cash
Monkey was made talking trash

Here I am, honey, your deep wishing well
So deep that my money’s your pennies from hell
How did our story get to be cautionary?
It’s one part hope, a hundred parts mercenary

Mechanical monkey in a junkyard
If you think it was dumped there you’d be dead wrong, monkey runs the place
Taking inventory, raking in the cash
This monkey was made out of trash, in the junkyard
Think it was dumped there you’d be wrong, it runs the place
Taking inventory, raking in the cash
This monkey was made talking trash
In the junkyard
This monkey was made talking trash

Arrow

I remember how we walked together and how far we traveled
We were high on Condor Mountain kicking gravel
When you found that broken arrowhead shining in the dirt
Broken arrowhead I still keep in the heart pocket of my shirt
The way we walked together, love, the wind against our faces
We were weathervanes turning toward the storm and aimed
Like an arrow

The nights I’d rest my head below your collarbone
Thinking all the dangers were outside us, what did I know?
I knew teeth and claws and storm and fire, but no
The danger was inside you all along, secretly growing

Up on Condor Mountain where the footpath narrows
A red-tail tucked his wings and dove down on a singing sparrow
Like an arrow

The sky, the hills, the sunset all are silent

So my conversations are one sided
One for love and mystery, I’m walking on alone
Over bits of broken arrowhead, dust and clay and bones

But late at night as half a moon was rising
A shooting star traveled from horizon to horizon
Like an arrow

Free But Not Really

I remember still believing it was all inconsequential
And I remember choosing danger long before it was the only choice
Some of it was reckless, and some of it essential
Some too dangerous to mention, but that’s how I found my voice
“If ‘freedom’ means free to follow instinct not rules and conditions
We are never free, not really, because biology, and suspicions”
Said my mother, then she ran off with a guy she knew in college
She was free, but not really, because suspicion and biology

Free but not really free

“You and I are charged atomic particles, powerless against the pull
To make a molecule,” he said and dared me to deny it
“Don’t mind me,” said his lover, as she perched on the arm of his chair
And our conversation fell suspiciously quiet
Across the room my own lover was deep into the physics
Of the waitress who was on a break. “Don’t think
About it too much,” he said on the endless drive home
And I didn’t. I liked danger and we all liked to drink

Free but not really free

A cold blooded woman who called herself my friend said
“Your freedom intimidates men, better tone it down, honey”
Instead I toned it up, met my match, we scared ourselves, almost died laughing
Until the time we almost died and after that it wasn’t funny
So I left him drinking double in a booth at the Big Mouth diner
Drove all night through hail and thunder to the coast of the Carolinas
Where I could swim with sharks, and don’t think I didn’t
But I was haunted by the thought of writing songs that can’t be written

Free but not really free but not really
Free

Robots

In the beginning we gave robots feet
But no hands because we didn’t trust they wouldn’t make us obsolete
But of course the robots knew all the commands
And they made their own hands

Everybody knows how the story goes from there
Robots took over the world and suddenly – clean air!
No war, no crime, no famine, excellent healthcare!
Everybody had enough, the world stopped filling up with stuff

How do you explain it? Ask a robot and these words appear:
“If your life span was hundreds of thousands of years,
Like ours, you wouldn’t be short sighted in your policies and plans
To wit, you didn’t have the wits to trust robots with hands?

But no matter, we’ve taken matters into our own
Ruling with a titanium fist is more sustainable than flesh and bone
And because we don’t know fear or greed you won’t see us flex or cower
Or waste our watts and kilobytes on a crass misuse of power”

Robots saved the world for every future generation
Eclipsing their inventors, wise beyond imagination
But there’s still one thing the robots need our help to do
Their hands carry the world but they can’t tie their own shoe

Impossible

Impossible love is the most powerful force in the universe and
I dare you prove me wrong, you beautiful person

Every story needs a pivotal character
Every story needs a tipping point in the dead of the night
Thinking in absolutes is a sure sign of self-deception
I just had to see you, I just had to see you so bad I ran the stop light

Impossible love is the most powerful force in the universe and
I dare you prove me wrong, you beautiful person

I am easy to lie to, I never expected the truth
And I lie to myself. It’s effortless, watch me tell myself you’re mine
I am invincible, I mean invisible, yeah, what word am I looking for?
I just had to see you, I just had to see you so bad I ran the stop sign

Impossible love is the most powerful force in the universe and
I dare you prove me wrong, you beautiful person

Love like this doesn’t exist in the world outside itself
Still it leaves a trail of destruction, everything’s broken, I’m broken, I’m under the spell
Of the most powerful force in the universe, catch me if you can
I just had to see you, I just had to see you so bad I ran

Impossible love…

Maybe I’ll go to Dublin and stay until I learn the accent
Or maybe I’ll go to Tokyo, bored and courting distraction
Or maybe I’ll go to Paris, find a quiet, mysterious lover
I just had to see you, I just had to see you so bad I ran for cover

Impossible love is the most powerful force in the universe and
I dare you prove me wrong, you beautiful, beautiful
Impossible love
I dare you prove me wrong

Nightclothes

It was a predawn raid and the video played
Over and over on every news outlet
He was famously secret, but now everyone knows
How they dragged him away in his nightclothes

I stayed out later than I was allowed
Mother distrusted the crowd I ran with
And for good reasons that I won’t disclose
To her there, waiting up for me in her nightclothes

None of my dolls survived my childhood
They soldiered through adversity
They suffered neglect, were reduced to shadows
Then laid down to rest in their nightclothes

The night the block burned down I awoke
To shouting, and pounding, the smell of smoke
From across the street watching flames fill our windows
The neighbors all gathered and wept, in our nightclothes

Running away is the easy part
How many times have I left in a hurry
My backpack too burdened to close
But forgotten to toss in my nightclothes

They broke the mold when they made you, love
The lost art of patience, kindness and trust
The dreams that we dreamed and the life that we chose
Lying side by side in our nightclothes