1. |
Illustrious
02:22
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Portion Road, it just got darker and nowadays you seem much farther
For eyes that once led me with light had left me lost in the dark night
And I would tear out all my hair if with your soft hands you'd repair
Me but you've no time to waste, setting me off on an endless chase.
Let's dance our fake dance, me and you, while I write songs that we can sing to--
A dance where we're so far apart we look like bad performance art.
Raynor's there, but nothing's right and I feel like I've lost my sight
For everything but pointless waiting which seems much more like a sedating.
Break my mind down, brick by brick, and rebuild me to the stars
To destroy what obscures my eyes and to help me be proud of my scars.
You've always been illustrious and I've never been a saint
And you've got a way of making me feel the things I love to hate.
Portion Road, it just got colder, and Montauk makes me feel much older
For it aids me in counting years since I faked showing you no fear
And Exit 61's mundane like pawns we've lost in our chess games
So damn to hell my expectations that we'll both receive revelations
Now Portion Road is lonelier than I've ever seen it
With hypodermic needles sleeping soundly in the grit.
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2. |
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Twice a week I take a bus from Ronkonkoma Station
To where the scum of Suffolk County can be found.
I'd trade my plastic heart for the guts to get on train instead
And leave my fat but weightless broken-glass life to the rats.
Adam's house got sold last month and it makes me kind of sad
That I didn't get to say goodbye to the era left behind.
İrem's gone off to London, Vin and Juli aren't kids anymore;
This and other things I can't bear to wrap my swollen thoughts around.
And I don't where this train takes me, Montauk or New York,
As long as it's raining when I get there.
Things are changing far too quickly for my spoiled rotten taste
So please give me a second to catch my breath.
The foreboding in my stomach just doesn't know when to quit
And my weary eyes just do not want to see
The ever-changing swirling shapes of color from my rooted perch.
Why are the things I hate the only ones that stay the same?
Adam's house got sold last month and all my friends have jobs.
May I please ask when the hell did all of us grow up?
I hate it for our eyes in sixth-grade yearbooks tell such different tales
And Lex says the only thing she wonders is why she doesn't wonder at all.
I've found love to be like a gasoline rainbow;
It's pretty but it smells kind of odd.
I tend to love things that can't love me back like films, bands, or you.
But if you could just "Explain It All," I'll be willing to listen.
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3. |
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Here I go. Here I go again.
I'm crossing the line of what's expected of friends.
Don't leave me now. Won't you stay for awhile
And make flowers bloom with your painfully bright smile?
Pigs in shining armor have such great disguises.
Maybe you'd come closer if I would just try less.
We could dance forever--I mean, if you want to--
And look up at the stars; we'd have us to talk to.
Write your sweet name on my paper headstone
With sincerity insincerely homegrown.
Don't leave me now. Please silence my screams
That only occur while only in dreams.
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4. |
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I wrote this song for you in the key of "G" because I know you think G's pretty.
I know you'd prefer a punk song, but I still lack a band to write one with,
My singing's atrocious, and my lyrics leave a lot to be desired.
(But hey, enough of the self-depreciation shit; it's unattractive, right?)
Today was a hundred degrees and
Tomorrow will feel like a December night.
I've got icicles hanging 'round my soul
Even though the summer sun is still blazing bright.
I woke up at one today and decided to clean my room
So I could feel a bit productive and a little more grown up.
I found my first journal and the first thing I ever wrote about you.
I was sixteen, stupid, and I knew nothing.
But I knew that you were beautiful
And that an angel put the sky in your eyes and the sun in your smile.
I knew you were to good for him, for me, and for anyone else in the world.
Yeah, I knew enough to know that.
And I've been trying to write a melody, for your voice is a song.
Whoever says "no one's perfect" clearly hasn't met you 'cause they're dead wrong.
And Long Island will be empty without you.
With you it shines, soon it won't so much as glow
And I'll take this opportunity to say
That I'm really going to miss you when you go.
You're poetry in motion just like J.D. Salinger.
No, he's not a poet, but he's my favorite and you stomp him into the dust.
You're beautifully written, flawlessly worded, and you jump right off the page so to speak,
And you could be about anything and still be just as so.
You're elegant and charming like my favorite Bright Eyes song
And a place called Storrs, Connecticut won't know what the hell hit it.
I'll miss so much the way you shine and how I'd sometimes let you win at Brawl.
I'll miss the way that you made me feel like I was real.
You're the most beautiful person I've met in every definition of the word
And you've got a way of lighting up rooms with just a blink of those blue eyes
And, to be honest, I think everything about you is absolutely perfect.
You make me want to be a fucking saint.
And while I'm being honest, I would just like to say
That the way you laugh is probably the cutest thing that I've ever heard.
And if I could take it off "G" for a minute,
I'd like to say that I'm sorry for writing this
Song because I know it's
Crossing a lot of lines.
And you know me, I can never find
The words for anything I want to say
But I just want you to
Know
That if it means anything to you
Or helps decipher my ramblings,
I'd blow off lunch with John Lennon
Just to watch Pokémon with you.
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5. |
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I've grown quite weary of writing these stupid two-bit love songs as sure
As you've grown weary of hearing them spew from the gaping cut in my face.
But here's one more from the factory inside my heart that also manufactures
Hate and cynicism but has a soft-spot for you.
I feel like I'm Jay Gatsby without the charm, mystique, or charisma
And that instead of an inlet, my green light is across the sound and thensome.
I've been trying to hard lately to find my footing--you've got to believe me--
But the only way I can stand is if you're there to hold me up with your smile.
And I'm sorry for this and everything
That I've done and what I'll fuck up later;
For this song and for all the other ones.
I just hope you can forgive.
But if you're waiting on roses then
Sweetheart, I've got your bouquet right here.
I've been trying to thaw it out since you
Left them out in the snow.
You once told me to stop thinking and sing so I will sing to you
That life without you is like The Wall on shuffle; you know, it just don't make sense
Yet here I am living it in the headlights of a car that will take me
Farther away from hope and promise and from 2009.
My darling, my sweetheart, my one and my only:
I can't live without you; you're in me, you own me.
I'm spiraling down into the deep and dark sea
Hoping oh so bleakly that somehow you'll hear me.
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