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 fingers

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!)

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