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Let's Not Shit Ourselves (to Love and to Be Loved)

from LIFTED or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (Remastered) by Bright Eyes

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lyrics

The animals laugh from the dark of the wilderness. A baby cries hard in an apartment complex, as I pass in a car buried under the influence. This city is driving me out of my mind.
I have seen a child is caught in the sad trap of gravity. He falls from the lowest branch of the apple tree and lands in the grass and weeps for his dignity. Next time, he will not aim so high. Yeah, next time, neither will I.
A mother takes loans out, sends her kids off to colleges. Her family is reduced to names on a shopping list. Meanwhile, a coroner kneels beneath a great, wooden crucifix. He knows that there are worse things than being alone.
I have learned to retreat at the first sign of danger. I mean, why wait around if it is just to surrender? Ambition, I have found, can lead only to failure. I do not read the reviews. No, I am not singing for you.
I stood dropping a coin into the pit of a well. And I would throw my whole billfold if I thought it would help. With all these wishes I make, I should buy something real, at least a telephone call home.
My teachers, they built this retaining wall memory, all those multiple choices I answered so quickly. And got my grades back and forgot, just as easily, but at least I got an A. So I don't have them to blame. I should stop pointing fingers; reserve my judgment of all those public action figures, the cowboy president. So loud behind the bullhorn, so proud they can't admit when they have made a mistake.
While poison ink spews from a speechwriter's pen, he knows that he don't have to say it, so it don't bother him. 'Honesty' 'Accuracy' are really just 'Popular Opinion'. And the approval rating is high, so someone is going to die. ABC, NBC, CBS: Bullshit. They give us fact or fiction? I guess an even split. And each new act of war is tonight's entertainment. We are still the pawns in their game. As they take eye for an eye, until no one can see, and we must stumble blindly forward, repeating history. Well, I guess that we all fit into your slogan on that fast food marquee: Red-blooded, White-skinned, oh, and the Blues. I got the Blues! I got the Blues! That's me! That's me!
Well, I awoke in relief. My sheets and tubes were all tangled, weak from whiskey and pills, in a Chicago hospital. My father was there, in a chair, by the window, staring so far away. I tried talking, just whispered, "..so sorry...so selfish..." He stopped me and said, "Child, I love you regardless and there is nothing you could do that would ever change this. I'm not angry. It happens. You just can't do it again."
So now, I try to keep up, I have been exchanging my currency. While a million objects pass through my periphery. So now I am rubbing my eyes because they are starting to bother me. I have been staring too long at the screen. But where was it when I first heard that sweet song of humility? It came to my ears in the goddamn loveliest melody. How grateful I was then to be part of the mystery, to love and to be loved. Lets just hope that is enough.

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Bright Eyes Omaha, Nebraska

Bright Eyes are the Omaha, Nebraska based band consisting of Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis, and Nathaniel Walcott.

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