C F C F C F C F C C F C F I have a friend, he's mostly made of pain C F C F He wakes up, drives to work and straight back home again C F C F He once cut one of my nightmares out of paper C F C F I thought it was beautiful, I put it on a record cover G C F And I tried to tell him that he had a sense G C F Of color and composition so magnificent F G F G And he said thank you, please, but your flattery F G F G It is truly not becoming me F G F G Your eyes are poor, you're blind, you see F G F G No beauty ever could have come from me C F I'm a waste C F Of breath, C F of space, C F of time C F C F C F I knew a woman, she was dignified and true C F C F Her love for her man was one of her many virtues C F C F Until one day she found out that he had lied C F C F And decided the rest of her life from that point on would be a lie G C F She was grateful for everything that had happened G C F And she was anxious for all that would come next F G F G But then she wept, what did you expect? F G F G In that big old house with the car she kept F G F G And, "Such is life," she often said F G F G With one day leading to the next F G F G You get a little closer to your death F G F G Which was fine with her, she never got upset F G F G And with all the days she may have left F G F G She would never clean another mess F G F G Or fold his shirts or look her best C F She was free C F To waste C F away C F alone C F C F C F C F Last night my brother he got drunk and drove C F C F And this cop pulled him off to the side of the road C F C F And he said, "Officer, officer, you've got the wrong man C F C F No, no, I'm a student of medicine, a son of a banker, you don't understand" G C F The cop said, "No one got hurt, you should be thankful G C F Your carelessness, it is truly something awful F G F G And no, I can't just let you go F G F G even though your father's name is known F G F G Your decisions now are yours alone F G F G You're nothing but a stepping stone C F On a path C F To debt, C F to loss C F to shame C F C F C F The last few months I've been living with this couple C F C F Yeah, you know the kind who buy everything in doubles C F C F Yeah, they fit together like a puzzle C F C F I love their love, and I am thankful G C F That someone actually received the prize that was promised G C F By all those fairy tales that drugged us F G F G And still do me, I'm sick, lonely F G F G No laurel tree, just green envy F F G Will my number come up eventually? F G F G Like love's some kind of lottery F G F G Where you scratch and see what's underneath C F It's sorry, C F just one cherry C F I'll play again C F get lucky C F C F C F So now I hang out down by the train's depot C F C F No, I don't ride, I just sit and watch the people there C F C F They remind me of windup cars in motion C F C F The way they spin and turn and jockey (or jerk each other off) for positions G C F And I want to scream out that it all is nonsense G C F And their life's one track and can't they see it's pointless? F G F G But just then my knees give under me F G F G My head feels weak and suddenly F G F G It's clear to see it's not them but me F G Who's lost my self-identity F G And I hide behind these books I read F G While scribbling my poetry F G Like art could save a wretch like me F G With some ideal ideology F G That no one could hope to achieve F G F G And I'm never real, it's just a sketch of me F G F G F And everything I've made is trite and cheap C F And a waste C F Of paint C F of tape C F of time C F C F C F C F So I park my car down by the cathedral C F C F Where the floodlights point up at the steeples C F C F Choir practice is filling up with people C F C F I hear the sound escaping as an echo C F C F Sloping off the ceiling at an angle C F C F When the voices blend they sound like angels C F C F I hope there's some room still in the middle G C F But when I lift my voice up now to reach them G C F The range is too high way up in heaven F G F G So I hold my tongue, forget the song F G F G Tie my shoes, start walking off F G F G And try to just keep moving on F G F G With my broken heart and my absent God F G F G And I have no faith and it's all I want C F to be loved, C F and to love C F and believe C F In my soul C F C F C F C F in my sooooooo oh oh ooooh oh oh ooooul C F C F C F C F in my sooooooo oh oh ooooh oh oh ooooul