I heard that Steely Dan song at the dollar store and it just lit me up I said to myself “I ain’t even got any kids, so what the fuck?” Is it time to buy a party boat and move to Connecticut Or maybe pump the breaks a bit Save your sighs Drown your hows and whys Circumvent the rational Stack the deck until your glass is full I pressed pause on my fashion sense when I was 26 Maybe if I walk around looking like it’s 2012 I can fool the kids Maybe this is much sadder than accepting I’m fatter and just leaning into quiet night and buying things Save your grief Drown your core beliefs Circumvent the rational Hog the well until your glass is full (Celebrate resignation...) Stage one: shock and denial Stage two: conquer the troll lifestyle Stage three: anger and bargain Stage four: watching a Golden Girls rerun Stage five: holding a vigil Stage six: a Dorian Grey-like sigil Stage seven: acceptance and hope Stage eight: chasing the dopamine to cope Save your strain Drown your guilt and shame Void the unavoidable Have a ball until your heart is full Save your sorrow Do the thing tomorrow Circumvent the albatross Just act like you meant to get lost

Could you put another movie on the tube I’m awake and I’m racing Thoughts are stuck pacing I could turn the volume all the way down And you can sleep when you wanna Not sure I’m gonna Just remembered all the problems in the world How the hell do I fix ‘em? Can’t we just nix them? Just recalled that I promised my mom I’d be famous by now And I’d buy her a house Take this how you want to But I’m a lost boy Sing like you’re losing your lungs It’s a song that once mattered The clue we last heard Unlock a little secret in a heart That was fading deep down Before we reach town I’ve got little to lose Let’s be happy Cut me A piece of that pie I feel like I might scream And I’m not sure why Excuse you This is what I’m used to Distract me good And let’s pretend I’ve pulled through And if the part of you that still pines Feels like a worn out Tilt-A-Whirl Maybe we grease the gears and redefine Look for an oyster, not a pearl Breath in While we still can Let’s go somewhere out state this weekend Use this Before it’s useless A swell in our idle adventurousness Breath out Let’s take this back route I ain’t gone this way since I was a Cub Scout Let’s try to let go Of what we can’t know I think if we turn left here there a new road

Please atone for your party foul Leave alone while you can shimmy out Part the seas of your own ennui And walk down the street with Disney Channel Dignity and be Like the kids on TV Disconnect all the simple lines Lace your wounds with a length of twine and believe That people wanna be like you When it’s not your call what they should or shouldn’t do It’s true Be cool Just put that speech in your pocket and listen You’re only one in a billion So try to be human Just kick that soap box out from under Kid, don’t it make you wonder If the lightning is worth all the thunder “Years ago” is a mantra now Say it more and say it kinda loud Tell the mirror you can see things clearer And do a double-take as your doppelganger sneers You’re a grown up adult with a level head You clean your towels and you make your bed, sure But why do you act like your youth is dead The day will come when you wish you were this age instead Just put that tongue in your fingers and hold it Let’s act out the story like you told it No one is old yet Just kiss your stars like you’ve always been lucky Your name won’t be on the marquee But you get a front row seat Hey, you came! You showed up, now go away This is a sacred place Only beamers have the green light to stay Oh no, you don’t have to go! I was only trying to balance a ratio You can’t be cocky, but you can’t be low Wipe that frown off your face But don’t look too glad though Please atone for your over-thought Jeez, you sure do say those words a lot Don’t you think they would’ve all forgot It’s a the past and it’s not an 80s movie plot

Driving up to my hometown To help my mom tear a treehouse down No everyone expects me to write a song about it Who wants to hear another dude sing About dirt roads and rusted up things As if I grew up in a folktale and I need to shout it Trees and trucks Shut the fuck up These mountains ain’t that tall And that has to be ok Someday Walking slowly down main street I kiss a lamplight and drag my feet Curate an image of a place And pretend it’s around me Ghosts and grit Who gives a shit My story only shines for me And that has to be ok Someday On the way back down 30 South I call your name out ‘Cause I need to believe You can hear me from the back roads And if I go real slow I might grab a look-see As you turn your Chevy On to 28 and I’ll speed up As my heart sinks down ‘Cause I think if I catch you I can keep you But I can’t It all makes sense now I don’t miss this town a bit I just let a part of me think you still live in it

Faced to the corner in the back of the place I saw the Omega He wore a common uniform of the trade Mouth poised like a beggar She’ll leave if you let her Set like a soda on the arm of a couch I saw something tipping My shadow said that he was phasing me out Or I’d better get gripping Things squeak when they’re slipping Drive me to my car So I don’t have to walk so far Drive me to your parents’ place So I don’t have to sleep in such an empty space Drive me to the show So I don’t have to go alone

Hung a page from an old magazine in my bedroom Hit record on a tape deck and sealed my doom When to sleep with a draft of a Grammy speech in mind Opened eyes with a car and a job and a loss of time So here we stand dumb grown-ups and Our collective disdain for the questions at hand How can it be so hard to keep this burning Give me that last red can of gasoline I am a dying flame Tell me you don’t feel the same How can it be so hard to spark like I’m still seventeen Watch the years disappear in my c-c-c-coffee cup Mourn the death of a deadline that I made up This is not A logical thought It’s an itch on a scar from a wound that I got How can it be so hard to keep this burning Give me that last red can of gasoline I am a dying flame Tell me you don’t feel the same How can it be so hard to spark like I’m still seventeen Did you just say “Let it die away You will finally learn to forget someday” Here’s hoping You’re joking I’ll never learn to let it go I’ll never learn to let this go

I’ll take it too hard And you won’t even notice From afar The snapshot you keep in your head It’s a caricature of me at an apex And the court objects They all come for you And they tell themselves someone shows up for me too But I’m making powerpop records for an empty room And all of these threads start to fray I can feel them wilt and wither Why the hell do I need so many anyway Let’s just let go like we’re losing a bet ‘Cause this is hardly the time or the place To fume like a cigarette And you can sing my acclaim when they mention my name I’ll be here twitching just a little but I’m itching just a little bit for fabled days: To just feel same It took a few decades But I finally get it I’m a mess Collect enough surrogates And I won’t even notice that they left What if I stopped showing up What if I ceased reaching out I’m scared everyone would just carry on and go about Comfy with the thought of me kicking ass Somewhere out there in a universe They never come in contact with No doubt So let’s just let go like we’re losing the race ‘Cause these are hardly the ways or the words to make you wanna see my face And we’ll squeeze real tight when we cross in the night I’ll explain to furrowed brows And you’ll explain to puzzled ears that we had fabled days I’m pretty sure we had fabled days I swear we had fabled days

I am basically a conduit For the word of a snake charmer And I cut a crooked blue silhouette On the seams of your diamond armor This could go a couple different ways Here, would you try this mouth guard on? Or if you strike I’ll flex my phantom brawn Winning others over since The Challenger took flight Winning others over but it doesn’t make me the good guy Winning others over shouldn’t be so prime Someone showed someone a spreadsheet And reduced us to fractions And now we’re supposed to turn and treat them like our power to bask in Hey, I don’t know about you But I’m having the damndest time getting this chainsaw started So thank goodness that the trees have parted Winning others over like a salesman with a craze Winning others over but it doesn’t last the moon phase Winning others over is a gauzy praise Go ahead Take that sticker And stick it on your forehead For human kind to see Why is it just so hard To be the you you are And not some version you wish you could be

Nights seem dull When you grew up watching Lloyd Dobbler Lift that stereo over his head ‘Til I snap out of the daydream And remind myself he was kind of a creep And so-called good guys don’t stand beneath windows and weep Take a time machine to me At age 13 and I’ll tell him melancholy chic Ain’t really that charming but he’ll grow out of it someday When he hates humans as a whole anyway Yet some withered ghost of Frank Capra still wails deep in my veins I got a heart like a cake: kinda stale, but ok I’ll save a slice for you all the same You’d never wolf it all down, But you’ll keep some around A joie de vivre for the battleground Life sifts by and I can’t remember the last time I shed a tear for Maude and her final line We both might look forward to sleeping And covet an hour to stare through the tv’s blue light But it’s the moments you reach for my side of the bed at night If we had gone to the same school In junior high Then I’d like to think I would have found you Two weirdos with a war cry With that amusement park head Wide awake in the bed A roller coaster of things you said I strapped in tight long ago Fuck if it don’t feel like home No need to ride this thing all alone I spent years and years destroying the Kevin Arnold in me But I’m still that guy who means what he says even if it’s clumsy Jaded and sour within But I’m looking for sparks again God damn it I’m gonna be exuberant My movie magic still gleams Somewhere back in the beams It burns brighter on the proper screen What if it’s fine to be still? Not every moment’s a thrill Who said I have to be Pecos Bill? We got a dream like a jigsaw Still finding pieces that fit wrong Every so often we start over from corner one I’m just so glad it’s still your face Walking up to the doorway Chiming your keys at the end of every day

We drew blood in the backyard With my teeth in your forehead We came down from the treetops In a vessel built by he dead You are I am So what You built that wall with a window Let me peer inside from time to time You are I am So what (beware of the dragon in the cave) The covenant is thicker than the womb So who broke our covenant? If I had a dime For every countless time You called upon my duty like it’s your to mine I’d buy myself a genie’s lamp and liquidate all three On wishing that you’d hugged me when he died You threw a cloak over my back Fitted me with horns and an evil laugh I think you’d strike all kind words from my epitaph What happened to the boy who dropped his baseball in the creek And jumped right in Like nothing mattered more than that You are I am So what Just so you know I’d take the blow I’d save your soul From a black hole