Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love And Be Loved)

Here we go
Can I get a goddamn timpani roll
To start this goddamn song?
Tonight
Here's a goddamn song
For all you goddamn people

Well, 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
The city is driving me out of my mind

I've seen a child, he's 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

Now a mother takes loans out, sends her kids off to colleges
Her family is reduced to names on a shopping list
While a coroner kneels beneath a great wooden crucifix
He knows there's worse things than being alone

And so I've learned to retreat at the first sign of danger
I mean why wait around if it's just to surrender?
And ambition I've found can lead only to failure
I do not read the reviews
No, I am not singing for you.

Well, 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

Well, my teachers they built this retaining wall of 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
And so I don't have them to blame

Well I should stop pointing figures Reserve my judgment of all those public action figures
The cowboy presidents
So loud behind the bullhorn, so proud they can't admit
When they've made a mistake

While poison ink spews from a speechwriter's pen
He knows he don't have to say it so it
It don't bother him
Honesty, accuracy is just popular opinion
And the approval rating is high
And so someone's gonna die

Well 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're still the pawns in their game

As they take eye for an eye
Until no one can see
We must stumble blindly forth repeating history
Well I guess we all fit into your slogan on that fast food marquee
Red blooded, white skinned oh and the blues
Oh and the blues, I got the blues, that's me! That's me! Woah!

I awoke in relief
My sheets and tubes were all tangled
Weak from whiskey and pills in a Chicago hospital
And 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
There is nothing you could do that would ever change this
I'm not angry, it happens...
But you just can't do it again"

So now I try to keep up
I've been exchanging my currency
While a million objects pass through my periphery
Now I'm rubbing my eyes
'Cause they're starting to bother me
I've been staring too long at the screen

But where was it when I first heard
That sweet sound 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
Let's just hope that is enough