LYRICS

JON:

Lara and myself, we were still inside

When our mother died

LARA:

Inheriting a tragedy

Now it's holding on to you and me

JON:

Married in the belly of a failing host

To the Holy Ghost

LARA:

The doctor sent a scalpel through

Now it's holding on to me and you

BOTH:

And our father banged his ribs

When he dumped us in the crib

When his twins have gone to bed

He'll be talking to the dead

We are the necromancer's kids

JON:

“The secrets of the future are the fruit of the dead”

That's what father said

LARA:

Establishing his clientele

And then we became his personnel

JON:

Demon divination by the candlelight

Just a business rite

LARA:

And pining for our mother's shade

She's the only spirit he forbade

BOTH:

We're the sum of what we lack

So we decked ourselves in black

When our father goes to bed

We'll be talking to the dead

We are the necromancer's kids

Then our mother's ghost assembled in the room

And with loveless grace informed us of our doom

JON:

Sister, I felt so cold, I thought I had died

Then the bastard found us, beat us alive

Oh we can never return, get in the car and drive

And take me anywhere that you want to go

We can drive real slow, let's just leave Ohio

LARA:

Jon, you know it's not your fault

Being born into a dead man's vault

JON:

Mother and the father and the ghost, amen

We are orphans now, we were orphans then

LARA:

And nothing can repay that debt

You forgive but you cannot forget

JON:

And you held your head and sighed,

“What a curse to be alive, but don't ever, ever let me die”

BOTH:

We are the necromancer's kids

We got tired of raising the dead

So we raised each other instead

LARA:

Tell me, Buddy, is the chairman keeping you up?

Tell me, Buddy, are the glad men kicking you in?

Well if the flood runs over the mountains up to your chin

Buddy, you are my bones

Buddy, you are my skin

When I'm with you I am home

Buddy, you are my twin

JON:

Little Lara, is a name tag weighing you down?

Little Lara, are the billboards boxing you in?

With every breath as young as you'll be, as old as you've been

Lara, you are my bones

Lara, you are my skin

When I'm with you I am home

Lara, you are my twin

Bodies belted out of orbit

Something pulls us back in

When I'm with you I am home, Lara

I'll never make it on my own, Lara

* * *

LARA:

Kind blue skies above

Stolen car below

Emancipation takes the spark

Burn smooth and slow

If the Devil grew God

To draw the Devil back in

She'd still be singing

With her mind rolled open to the world

JON:

He will not miss his home

It's a battle cry

It's a bitter lie blown

Through the telephone

And you were drawing figure-of-eights

He will not miss his home

How could he miss his home?

LARA:

Kind blue skies above

Stolen car below

Emancipation takes the spark

Burn smooth and slow

If the Devil grew God

To draw the Devil back in

She'd still be singing

With her mind rolled open to the world

JON:

He will not miss his home

It's a battle cry

It's a bitter lie blown

Through the telephone

And you were drawing figure-of-eights

LARA:

It's an abstract portrait of fate

JON:

He shall not miss his home

* * *

JON:

Dutch Colonial Revival

You were seared into my brain

The cassette is flipping over

“I believe I'm gonna rain”

If you buy the cigarettes

Then I can do the gasoline

Oh my head is a piñata

And my heart's a tangerine

Guess we never got happy

Guess we never bled cool

Dreading gym and going swimming

Getting picked on in the pool

Spending Sundays at the mall

And wishing comfort could be bought

Mr. Sullivan my teacher

Said, Think about your thoughts

So think of Saturday mornings

Sneaking crooked down the steps

Mining cereal for prizes

Watching TV while he slept

Until our bodies grew louder

And we taught them how to sin

Secret corners in the basement

Lara, you are my twin

Remember peeling through the ceiling

Wrapped in blankets in the black

When we flew into infinity

And never looked back

Until the day we took mushrooms

In our clearing on the rocks

Dad was human, just a stranger

True forgiveness never knocks

So listen, don't cry, Lara

'Cause the pain is gonna bloom

See an old man smiling

On a young man's gloom

See a young boy clinging

To the tulips in the tomb

When I'm with you I am home, Lara

I'll never make it on my own, Lara

LARA:

I'm so grateful that I can call you my twin

JON:

When morning comes

Let's forget it's ever dark

You hold me close

We go walking through the park

Bright dove-tipped trees

Urban arteries in bloom

Spill human seed

Wafting westward like perfume

Through the city suites

Through all the city suites

* * *

JON:

Hey hey I'm blowing away

I love you but it's me versus different chemicals

When they go strumming my veins

I'm laughing through my teeth, I'm a beaten animal

So with my hands in my pockets and my shoes untied

I go out to kiss the creator

We're gonna talk talk talk

'Til the thinking slows and I know, I know, I know…

We got his funeral grin

His baggy hospital eyes

I hope you're riding the rails

As I go scraping the skies

And cut away from the crowd

For a familiar street

Where I'm becoming the man

I said I never would be

He's leaning out of the frame

His face is twisted and wild

His blood is punishing me

I am forever a child

Watching my shadow recede

Into the darkening hall

My body's running away

But I remember it all

I remember it all

The city's quivering hope

Is shining out of our spines

I had a bucket of change

And drank a bottle of wine

Fuck man it's great to be young

And sell your hunger for bread

Sister I've fallen in love

With something ugly and dead

I keep a picture of you

I couldn't tell you the year

Sneaking some cake in your cheeks

The stillness brings me to tears

What hands have cradled the void

These hooks have swatted away

Black bile scours my heart

It's just like dad used to say

“Don't be so sensitive kid

This life will swallow you whole”

So I adopted a shame

Called what I couldn't control

Still, it was easier then

Before I had to survive

When I would lie in my bed

Imagine mom was alive

I would envision a night

When I'd be perfect and free

With an invisible moon

An unpredictable sea

And everybody I saw

Someone I wanted to be

And each reciprocal glance

Would be a present to me

Now there's a time and a place

I wish I couldn't recall

I remember it all

I remember it all

If I need what I despise

If I curse what I create

If I cannot change this feeling

Feeling is fate

If the father could not love

If the mother could not hate

Then he's always missing something

Something tells me that

By blade, by bullet, by flood or by flight

I'm gonna ditch this body in the city tonight

Because it's never been mine

Because it's never been mine

I said by blade, by bullet, by flood or by flight

I'm gonna ditch this body in the city tonight

Because it's never been mine

No, no, no, no it's never been mine

So I said nothing at all

Except a hypocrite's prayer

Though you carry the map

Lara darling, don't follow me here

He was a delicate dog

What a delicate dog

He sang:

Lara and myself, we were still inside

When our mother died…

I am cut loose

I am born again

I am cut loose

But I remember it all

* * *

JON:

I am the boy with the sinkhole eyes

And the crooked legs

Tripping into the bar

I wanna do what you're thinking

I want to pour what you're drinking

I want to know who you are

I wanna sit at your table

I want to sit at your table

I want to sit to the side

Who am I? Could he ever be on your side?

I've got the face of a soldier

My mother's dad was a soldier

He died in a major war

For my Roman nose

And my blue, blue jeans

Brown hairs that defect like friends to the floor

I wanna sit at your table

I want to sit at your table

I want to sit to the side

Who am I? Could he ever be on your side?

She's some kind of mannequin goddess

I don't know a word that I'm saying

But it sounds like something important

Because she's beautiful, I guess

She's V-I-V-I-A-N-A

She's taken note of my shoes

I'm carving deer on the wall

She says What are you called

I tell her Jon with no H

Then she parts her lips just ever so slightly

Thumbs in my pockets

She's making light of the time

I'm going out of my clothes

When I whisper the words

That you never should say

Did you know that my dad is the guy on TV?

Do you want to hear some poetry?

Bright dove-tipped trees

Urban arteries in bloom

Spill human seed

And I want to spill some too...

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus

Who for the joy set before him endured the cross

Put on that strawberry gloss

It's my favorite distraction

She's some kind of mannequin goddess

I don't know a word that I'm saying

But it sounds like something important

Because she's beautiful, I guess

She's V-I-V-I-A-N-A

Here's something new to remember

A burning letter held our bodies aloft

We were soft as doves

I had to sit at your table

I used to sit at your table

You smiled and you took me to your city suite

* * *

JON:

Now I'm in love with it all

But she remembers it all

LARA:

As he was tearing away

He hollered it was him versus different chemicals

So I had nothing to say

I chased him through the streets like a cheated criminal

So now it's so long stranger, will I see you again

I bent down and cursed the creator

I'll take your hindsight love

It's the only kind that I know, I know, I know…

Spare me your lullabies

I'll set fire to your pillows, blacken your billows

And rise from your city suite

In the guise of a pigeon, dumb with derision above

But I'll be thinking of you

My twin, my kind

Take your time

Make all the memories you need

Be young, go blind

Take your time

I'll be alright on my own

Yes Jon, just fine

Take your time

I'll be alright on my own

Yes Jon, just fine

Take your time

And sing:

“Lara and myself we were still inside

When our mother died”

So our mother died!

I am cut loose

I am born again

I am cut loose

But I remember it all

I am cut loose

Singing, “Lara and myself were still inside

When our mother died”

I am cut loose

* * *

JON:

When morning comes

Let's forget it's ever dark

You hold me close

We go walking through the park

JON:

I am not ready for the fall

Who are you seeing? Won't you call?

I've been a postman for the pay

But I'm writing a book about riding away

I was a captive of your charms

Of raw amber mornings in your arms

Oh how you shivered! How you swooned!

Now I dole out your mail in the late afternoons

But when I was the man with the news, where were you?

Yeah when I was the man with the news, where were you?

Yeah now I ride around like a spent cavalier, Paul Revere

But when I was the man with the news, where were you?

So I keep to my route

And I tally the leaves

Blowing dry down the street

You told me I would never change, love

Not so, not so

I'm hollowed out and in decay, love

Come home, come home

I'll be delivered in the dark

Stripped of my splintered, sallow bark

Nothing to blacken or exalt

I can't blame you for leaving, it's nobody's fault

So just take my collapse with a pillar of salt

But when I was the man with the news, where were you?

Yeah when I was the man with the news, where were you?

Yeah now I ride around like a spent cavalier, Paul Revere

But when I was the man with the news, where were you?

LARA:

The woman with the painted eyebrow stare

With crimson rubber lips and copper hair

Clings to her cart down on Pilgrimage Row

And soon she'll roll it where the numbers end

She'll fill it up and roll it back again

Judy or Bridget or

Joan trudges home from her morning retreat

She's got nothing to speak of and no one to meet

But it's not like she made any promises

It's not like she's ever had happiness

Real happiness

And passing through a couple's parting hands

Her memories dance upon their wedding bands

Making it hard to go easy, I know

Remember when he used to call on you

And taught you all the things that lovers do

Back and forth, back and forth

Pinning you down with his capital eyes

As he lapped like a beast at the source of your thighs

Well it's not like you made any promises

It's not like you ever had happiness

Real happiness

And his words are like dollars

What's backing them

If I could leave this city

No lights, no talk, no pity

Just another month

Another year at least

Another pilgrimage

Joan, I know that you're the same as me

We're haunted by the same epiphany

Love is the only thing worth this decay

But nothing changes after twenty-two

Except the way that people look at you

When did I ever get

Old in whose eyes? In whose eyes? In whose eyes?

I will now count the faces that fed me to time

Well it's not like we made any promises

It's not like I'll ever have happiness

Real happiness

Oh, what's happiness?

And his words are like dollars

What's backing them

If happiness was just a pilgrimage

JON:

Today I met a lawyer

Young but ready to retire

Trashed and tripping through the avenue

With eyes of sunken lead

He was choking on the past

And he was asking for a fire

So I lit his trembling cigarette

And this is what he said

Let the ashes speckle my workclothes

At last the day is done

When it started shit was golden

There was promise there was purpose

But the people disappoint you

You disappoint yourself

And the frames of my existence

Once were vivid with desire

But the sequence soon eluded me

And emptied me of want

Let the ashes speckle my workclothes

At last the day is done

And I dreamt I saw the mushroom

Looming heavy in the skyline

And I watched it rumble and flicker and run

Until the scene went black

And the only thought that soothed me

In the Technicolor rubble was

If we could start this over again

We'd fuck it all up twice

Let the ashes speckle my workclothes

At last the day is done

Let the ashes speckle Armani

Let the ashes speckle Versace

Let the ashes speckle my body

At last the day is done

At last the day has come

LARA:

Take your time, take your time

Lay me out and thread it through me

My lips have gone cold; you're alright

Here's to chance, here's to choice

To the chaos in the cupboard

As the trains rattle by in the night

Spin me away

Apple seed is pigeon feed

Just spin me away

Wind me up, reel me in

Wrap me tight around the spindle

Hear me whine, watch me twirl, let me go

You return, you retreat

Ceaseless coming, endless going

It's the cheapest sensation I know

Spin me away

Apple seed is pigeon feed

Just spin me away

* * *

LARA:

Momma loves her baby

Don't you know it's true

And daddy loves his baby

Just as much as a man can do

As much as a man can do

You know he'd do it to you

You're measured out in minutes

When the thread is spun

Just keep your head down

And don't look up to no one

Mister am I gonna get paid today

Need a dollar got a daughter on the way

She won't know the worst of it

She'll never know

Daddy's fled from momma's bed

She'll never know

Mister am I gonna get paid today

Need a dollar got a daughter on the way

Mister am I gonna get paid today

Can't work another fourteen hour day

Can't work another fourteen hour day, no way

Need a dollar got a daughter on the way

Mister am I gonna get paid today

Need a dollar got a daughter on the way

* * *

LARA:

Brittle words, crippled birds

Making promises like pigeons

When there's only one vow we can keep

Idly I made one too

Never dreamt I'd have to break it

With the shears to my heart

We were pinned from the start

So I'll spare her and snip her away

(Instrumental)

JON:

Who wants a waltz about pigeons and doves

Pyramid builders and pockets of mud

And the blood it goes slow, it goes slow

Through a mind full of bitterness

Muscling for meaning in top-heavy piles

I was cruel as the fuel in the engines of style

While the bones, they grew tight, they grew tall

'Round a mind full of bitterness

My mind's in a bit of a bind

Lara goes out in the rain

And plays like a bird in a bitter wind

One, two, now you're out of the blue

Lara don't rattle my chains

It's a curse and it kills to consider it

And you know it's just down, it's just smoke

Blowing 'round in a bitter wind

And the kids don't get tickled or choked

If you ever get out

My mind's in a bit of a bind

Lara goes out in the rain

And plays like a bird in a bitter wind

One, two, now you're out of the blue

Lara don't rattle my chains

It's a curse and it kills to consider it

No Name, taken out of the game

Drools in our Gemini heart

She's a part and we'll never be rid of it

Cold chrome under feathers and foam

Tendrils reach out from the moon

It's a curse and it kills to consider it

* * *

JON:

I watched my father on storefront TVs

Asking me what I was trying to be

“Carve out a niche or collect in the ditch

'Cause it's nothing but ego and madness between”

I looked up to the towers, majestic and mean

Felt my sister collapse in the absence beneath

Thought of my momma and then Viviana

And gave her the words I was needing for me

Life has no love for you

Yeah, well I do, I do

Time has no plans for you

Yeah, well I do, I do

I can't see anything

I hear the birds sing, a few

I won't say anything

No more sad songs for you

Oh love

Pigeons and doves are not the same bird

JON:

So this is how it ends

My mother's black curse

The harvest for a seed

In the hardboiled earth

Are you aching like me

Never know where you belong

It's a trivial swim

It's a serious song

Brisk breezes chill you to the bone

Howling sirens call you home

That's a place I've never been to

There's so much I can't contain

Ancient currents in my veins

And that's what I'm going to give you

I've got life

Let me give it to you

I put my sister in the ground

Tucked her in and let her down

Who's to care if I continue?

All the kin I'll never meet

Fleeting strangers in repeat

And that's what I'm going to give you

I've got life

Let me give it to you