Ithica lyrics
1.) The life TV. gave to me
I wish I was beautiful like nobody is.
The life TV. gave to me, the concept of kids.
I need this to be okay.
2.) open/on/start/live
Josh grew up on the plains of west Texas
watching his parent's love die.
He and his mom made a new life in Cleveland
where the planes and red dust fill the sky.
With the highways and forest between them
Josh would not just turn out like his dad.
But his mom said son you look just like him
then she turned to her boy and she said,
but you'll be much better someday my son.
Julie felt herself falling to pieces
as her father's lung cancer grew worse,
but her father said look at me baby
and remember no matter what hurt.
That you'll be much better someday my love.
3.) White picket fences
I am an astronaut on Earth
wandering these inky Cleveland nights.
I am as endless, I am as endless
as you are.
All of the billboards are pointed north.
All of these laundry mats hang still
as you go walking beside me.
I want you to stay with me.
Don't leave yet.
There's nothing left,
but these bottles and parking lots.
All over, they're all over.
I want you to stay right now.
Don't leave yet.
There’s nothing left,
but commercials and photographs
all over.
I need you to stat right now.
Don't leave yet.
There’s nothing left.
This will be easy
white picket fences everywhere.
This will be easy
if you'll hold my hand and try to care.
This will be easy
car pools with lunches in between.
This will be easy
white picket fences everywhere.
4.) There is love in the ceiling
They are screening their phone calls.
They are locking their doors.
They are choking down a silence.
They are sleeping on an empty floor.
They say that God is a slogan.
They say that truth is a children's song.
They claim that love has completely vanished.
They claim that love is completely gone,
but there is love in the ceiling.
There is love scribbled on the bathroom floor.
There is love in the furniture.
There is love in every secret drawer.
Those dead they are not nothing.
Those dead they are not gone.
Those dead they are not nothing.
I believe those dead will live again.
There is love in the ceiling.
5.) At the bottom of sleep
When the bowling alley sinks
and it's all right. Yeah it's alight
that the glaciers have just killed
all the rednecks on your street
and the moonlight stretches over Taco Bell.
And you feel like you'll implode
in the morning, every morning
by your slippers and your toast.
and you know he's done you wrong,
but you love him
and you're not ready to leave just yet.
Do you love him or are you not ready leave?
6.) My manic mother quietly folding clothes
When Julie's father died.
Her mother went insane.
Laid in a bath for hours
counting the tiles around her.
She put up post it notes
all over Julie's bedroom
with things that needed cleaning
and the words that she'd been thinking.
"Since I woke up today
I don't feel anything.
Today I made a change.
Now every-thing's okay.
I don't feel anything.
The dishes in the sink.
The stain won't go away.
I don't feel anything."
7.) The art of drowning
Your mom and dad should be so happy.
You got a job and you're out of town.
You made new friends who feel so lucky
they folded up their paper arms,
and selfishness it steams your coffee
while gutter punks in street lamps dance.
and you won't be sad at all.
You see it's over my friends, the end is here.
You lie all the time.
Why even talk? Why are you here?
What have you done?
Why don't you stop?
Why won't you just keep quiet?
I'm tired of this.
The credit reports
stacked on my desk.
All over my house
right in my bed
why would you keep on lying.
I hate the way we live like machines
the sexless routine
it's all over town
what have you done
why do we just keep trying.
You better not call him again.
It's all over town.
It's always my fault.
You better leave.
You better just keep quiet.
8.) My father's son
What the hell have I done
my hands are numb
and you are outside screaming
Vodka still on my tongue
I heard what you did
and I could not stop drinking
Sobbing here in my sheets you stared
you up at me and swore that he meant nothing
TV. blaring downstairs your words in my ears
and now the walls are spinning.
I remember you said you wanted someone
to love you like your dad did.
A man who'd never be this staggering sick
slurring I don't mean it.
Broken glass on the floor
your name on my lips
I thought that I'd be like him.
Well I wish I was.
I wish I was,
but I am my father's son. I feel his hands on the back of my brain stem.
I am my father's son.
I hear his words in the back of my throat all night.
9.) Life ends and begins again (instrumental)
10.) Ithica
Quentin Terantino films are washing over Julie's glasses,
reminding her that she is growing cold.
All the other film school drop outs made remarks about detachment, and
how our culture is slowly getting old.
They say she's better off this way.
Josh went home to end it all between the South Park and the Seinfeld.
Laughter makes it easier to quit.
All his tiny blue electrons whispered "Don't", into his sadness, but Josh's eyes were screaming this is it.
They say he's better off this way.
They say were all better off this way.
The ATMs and the Coke machines
don’t give us what we need.
11. A grace
Josh had made a model of a crucifixion scene
with all his Gi. Joes in desert clothes instead
of playful green.
All their plastic knees were knocking
as the savior bled upon a tree of matchstick
branches paper thorns upon his head.
When Josh's mom got home from work
she stared in disbelief at how her son
could make a sacrilegious game of all this grief,
but Josh looked up with weary eyes
his face was burning red and he gazed into
his mother's stare with sadness as he said
"It is gone.
I know. Sold for nothing.
I let it go,
and I have lost my childhood to the depths of faithless days.
I want it back now. I want a grace."
12.) Norman Rockwell Revisited
So I go to Star bucks and drink what I like.
Then I go to Wendy's order everything twice.
I like it. I hate it.
I like it sometimes.
Like I like me I hate me.
I hate me.
I tell you I love you
and you just turn away.
As I lay here beside you now
there is no more to say.
I dream of nuclear families
and sweat shops till dawn
13.) Ulysses (instrumental)
