1. |
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This diagnosis has been a long time coming
Walk out of the clinic like a jackpot lottery winner
Just needed a little confirmation of what I’ve known deep down all along
From someone with a PhD
This diagnosis has been a long time coming
This diagnosis has been a long time coming
This diagnosis has been a long time coming
It was just another day at work for her
The case I could make in my head was incontrovertible
Yet all was riding on my ability to communicate it to her
An irony so thick, could've cut it with a blade
Had to take that dragon down to have it seen as a part of me
And in it’s fiery death rattle I was given my instructions
To tell her “I’ve been losing sleep because I don’t know what you think”
Tell her “the formality of this process has me yearning for candor”
Tell her “I won’t try to persuade you but I need you to understand
That I’ve been digging up these ruins for 28 years
And you’ve only just stepped into my museum
I respect your expertise, lord knows I must be biased
But if you think I’m wrong I’ll need it spelled out in great detail
Sure I have survived so far without this
But to me this word has so much explanatory power
It connects the dots I always thought would be estranged
And without it I’m imprisoned in a house of broken mirrors
I know that some cannot hide it the way I can
And maybe it should be reserved for them
But I need something to describe this curious condition
And as far as I know this is all that can”
This diagnosis has been a long time coming
This diagnosis has been a long time coming
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2. |
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Oh, I missed the memo again
White socks at a wedding
I’m taking the joke too far
Just trying to be funny
I’m pointing out a logical flaw
When I’m just supposed to listen
And now everyone is annoyed
And I don’t what I did wrong
Honesty is a virtue and bluntness is a vice
Always tell the truth and always be polite
I missed the memo again
She smiles when she sees me
But I can’t be sure what that means
Maybe she just feels sorry for me
Been told I come across as a creep
Because I never talk
But that silence is the only way
For me to navigate all these contradictions
Honesty is a virtue and bluntness is a vice
Always tell the truth and always be polite
Honesty is a virtue and bluntness is a vice
Always tell the truth and always be polite
Maybe they’re all just better than me
Because they know what to say and how to dance
Maybe they’re all just better than me
Because they know what to wear and how to flirt
Maybe they’re all just better than me
Because they don’t make as many of these mistakes like I do
Maybe they’re all just better than me
Because the rules are effortless and intuitive for them
Maybe they’re all, maybe they’re all just better than me
Maybe they’re all, maybe they’re all just better than me
Maybe they’re all, maybe they’re all just better than me
I missed the memo again
Maybe they’re all, maybe they’re all just better than me
I missed the memo again
Honesty is a virtue and bluntness is a vice
Always tell the truth and always be polite
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3. |
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Everybody’s using a new word
To say all the shit that they’ve said before
I can’t see any other purpose it would serve
But to indicate some sort of heightened social aptitude
And thus ascend the hierarchy of status
This is the only way that i can understand
I’m a foreigner in my home country
I’m an alien in the wrong galaxy
I’m a land animal and I’m lost at sea
I’m an android in a tribe of chimpanzees
Foreigner, alien, everywhere I go
Foreigner, alien, everywhere I go
Others seem to just soak these new trends in
And I can only apply them consciously
To the extent that i can act in my own interest
It feels so painfully superficial
Many times i have resolved to suck it up and play along
But I only ever infiltrate the outskirts of the herd
And we all know what that means when the predators come
Subtle is the game of status and power
Every little thing has some connotation
Ain’t enough to just master the lexicon
Gotta stay ahead of the semantic shift
Kings are made by syntax and slang
I’m just trying not to get excommunicated
Euphemisms come and euphemisms go
All that’s constant is my inability to…
Stay in the loop
Stay in the loop
I’m a foreigner in my home country
I’m an alien in the wrong galaxy
I’m a land animal and I’m lost at sea
I’m an android in a tribe of chimpanzees
Foreigner, alien, everywhere I go
Stay in the loop
Foreigner, alien, everywhere I go
Stay in the loop
Foreigner, alien, everywhere I go
Stay in the loop
Foreigner, alien, everywhere I go
Stay in the loop
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4. |
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She had an exorcism at three years old
Cuz the songs that they sang at church made her cry
Didn’t know what to do with that emotion so she fled
And they all thought that she was running from the lord
She had an exorcism at
Three years old
You’re never too young for the devil to
Enter your soul
She had an exorcism at
Three years old
The children of Faustus will pay
For what he sold
The power of Christ could not compel her to
Look them in the eyes when they talked to her
Yet she never growled like a beast and she never turned red
I guess that Lucifer doesn’t always send his best
And the irony is that in ten years time she would know more about the gospels than the pastor himself
Yeah, she loves information
And when her hands touched the piano the entire congregation would proclaim her to be a melodic messenger of God
Oh, she’s got perfect pitch, yeah
How did she go from Satan’s puppet to a young theologian, and running from the choir to channeling the harmonies of heaven all with the same peculiar mind?
Either the exorcism was a raving success, a triumph of divinity, a great victory over evil
Or maybe they just jumped to conclusions about that whole demon thing
And though she always was too smart to believe in such silly superstition
How could she help but wonder why it was her that they saw such evil in?
Who wouldn’t then begin to view everything they did with suspicion knowing how it could be interpreted?
And so though she never believed in the demons, in effect, she started to act as if they were real
So now she’s letting the demons back, she’s letting the demons back in
Because she purged along with them something sacred deep inside
So now she’s letting the demons back, she’s letting the demons back in
Cuz all her life she’s been possessed by the fear of being seen as evil again
Oh, next time you see a demon in a little girl
You better pray the devil leave your eyes instead
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5. |
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Ole’ Billy Buckner must have been the best player in his town to get that far
His folks must’ve been so proud
When he won the batting title, when made the all-star team
When he led the league in doubles and when he set that record for assists
But one error in one game is all he’s remembered for
What a tragedy to be so talented but for it to be ignored
A story old as time
Your failures and your flaws are all that they can see from the nose-bleed section
They say everybody gets a trophy nowadays
But their shine was insufficient to erase
The memories, the shame
Of letting the ball roll right between my legs
Of striking out every time that I stepped up to the goddamn plate
Of being placed at the end of the lineup every fucking game
Oh, everybody gets a trophy nowadays
But all they do is make me feel unworthy
From the top of my dresser they sing of my shame
Of leaving the bases loaded in a one-run game
Of being relegated to the wasteland that is right field
The coach praying to God that nothing comes my way
And worst of all how everybody cheered when I made it to first base only because an errant pitch happened to hit me upon the elbow
Oh, sitting on the bench for so long made you feel like that’s where you belong
When trying to play their games by their rules was where you really went wrong
You loved the game and all of its beautiful metrics so much you just couldn’t give it up
But it never loved you back
You were the second worst player on team, yet unrivaled as a student of the game and all of its history
You never could quite catch a fly ball but you knew more statistics than all the other kids and coaches combined
You couldn’t hit anything beyond the infield but you knew who had the most homeruns in 1932
And so all that knowledge ever did was just make you see your own shortcomings more analytically
Oh, sitting on the bench for so long made you feel like that’s where you belong
Oh, sitting on the bench for so long made you feel like that’s where you belong
Everybody gets a trophy but me
Everybody gets a trophy but me
Everybody gets a trophy but me
Everybody gets a trophy but me
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6. |
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He could have been an artist or a scholar with that talent but instead
He chose to spend his days perfecting his disappearing act
If only they knew the effort that went into his show
They would be more impressed with what they didn’t know
He is the hide and seek champion of the world
A feat for which there can be no recognition
They would give him his award if only they could see
But then the jig would be up
He is the hide and seek champion of the world
And no one will ever know, no, no one will ever know
He is the hide and seek champion of the world
And no one will ever know, no, no, no one will ever know
No one will ever know, no, no one will ever know
The day that he invented the invisibility machine
He thought that he had found the cure for loneliness
And was sure that he would be hailed as the next Edison
Overlooking how a lightbulb’s shine serves as free promotion
Emerging from his lab and to his great surprise
No one seemed to notice all that he had achieved
His legacy was even less substantial than before
There could be no portrait in the history books to accompany his name
He thought that his disguise would endear him to the people, oh
They pointed and they laughed before and now all that is over
He once had merely lacked respect, now he stares down oblivion
And slowly he’s forgetting what he looks like too
The mind of an inventor
Wasted on a cheap illusion
The gift of ingenuity
Wasted on a slight of hand
He’s the hide and seek champion of the world
He’s the hide and seek champion of the world
And no one will ever know, no, no one will ever know
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7. |
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8. |
Mental Insulation Theory
12:39
|
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And though I’m bad at some things
And humorously so
I excel at others
Give me a chance to show
Don’t know how to say the rights things
Don’t know how to self-promote
But I’ve got lots of ideas
To contribute to the world
Yes, I was born with microscope eyes
Took me 27 years to finally turn them inside
And now that I’ve applied them to this scientific mystery
I think I’ve figured out something
Not just about myself
But about everybody too
And the balance that defines us
And the meaning of its distribution in the population
I am not a scientist but allow me this one hypothesis
Given how we humans are such a social species
Those of us born with minds that are less tightly connected to that all important network will veer off into unpredictable directions
Yes, the tendency of most to learn by osmosis and imitation of everyone around them mediates extremes and brings them closer to the average
Most are afforded access to a psychocommunal safety net that integrates them instinctively into a clear and stable role
And without that roadmap for typical development all that one is left with is the raw cognitive mechanisms for pattern recognition
And it could never be the case that everyone would think this way
Because survival’s always been a matter of community cohesion
So nature masterminded an elaborate continuum
Contingent on the outliers of the distribution
Knowing many of them would be shunned, shamed and abandoned
Even as the tools they make achieve widespread adoption
Baffled doctors of the brain would try to understand
And in their search for an antidote, stumble on the truth
Yes, the ties that bind the masses are vital to their conservation
Be they deities and nations, or courtesies and gestures
They keep the language alive through the generations
Yet nourish all our most destructive dogmas just as well
The balance it must be preserved, the spirit of the scientific method
Encrypted in the DNA of a child who will never learn to speak
Diametrically opposed to the schizophrenic ethos that seizes man
In absence of this insulation from external thought
Oh, the balance it must be preserved, the source of innovation
Is easily mistaken for the seeds of malice and disorder
The tribe that judges harshly those that struggle with its rituals
Will be in short supply of saviors when its vital engine stalls
Oh, the balance it must be preserved, the fulcrum of civilization
Is a well-placed wrench amidst the gears of our social apparatus
That starts to contemplate the inner workings of the machine it has disrupted
Discreetly takes the wheel and steers this massive horde of apes into the future
The balance must be…
Preserved!
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