The Lawrence Arms : The Greatest Story Ever Told

Punk-Rock / USA
(2003 - Fat Wreck Chords)
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Lyrics


1. Introduction (The Ramblin' Boys Of Pleasure Sing The Hobo Clown Chorus)

I'm a clown
only here to entertain
All the clowns
only here to entertain
All the clowns
only here to entertain

2. The Raw And Searing Flesh

i never want to see you
in the raw and searing flesh
i don't ever want to hear you
singing softly to the dead
i never want to feel your skin
running warm along my side
i don't ever want to sink that way again
it would be easier to die
to die

i'm tending the pyres of my frustrations
burning leaves on buried dreams
kneeling in to rake the ashes
i'm embering. you're smoldered out.
my hands are free,
my lungs are proud
your forgiveness is a fading fiction
your forgiveness is a fading fiction
these flames have never burned so high
i won't be staring in your eyes

i'm trying hard not to remember
the way the smoke drifts through the air
we'll all be dead come november
four months out of every year
every year
(every year)

i won't be staring in your eyes
every year

3. On With The Show

Telephone, telephone
What did you scream into your telephone? Telephone!
What did you scream into your telephone? Telephone!

I'm a shit stain slave with a grind of my own
I work day and night, less respect than a Juggalo

I'm frying on the outside and frozen in the center
I'm telling you, I'm telling you to watch out for my temper

You won't like me when I'm angry
You'll see banners everywhere

The street where I'm from,
in the town where I live is now barely even there

Telephone, telephone
What did you scream into your telephone? Telephone!
What did you scream into your telephone? Telephone!

I haven't had fun in what seems like years
I had a thumbs up for you but it was caught in the gears

These tears are just onion eyes
This heart is just broken
This body is a break room where burnouts are smoking
This body is a break room where the burnouts are smoking

Telephone!

What did you scream into your telephone? Telephone!
What did you scream into your telephone? Telephone!

Telephone!

I'm a clown, I'm just here to entertain
Tear me up and stuff me down the drain

I'm a clown, I'm just here to entertain
Tear me up and stuff me down the drain

Ah!

4. Drunk Mouth Kitchen Smile

concerning confrontations
this is a shy and quiet morning
the sleeping dogs awoke last night
the thunder scares them, stiff eyed
exercise (your exorcisms)
anchor down (raise the sail)
autumn night,
stay soft and cool
come morning light
i'll be gone

spectators are tired of watching
they're filing out the big top doors
i'm buried in the smell of circus
those dark clouds are rolling in
drunken mouth (kitchen smile)
please summon me softly to sleep

today i've seen a dragon
on the ripped and worn out armrest
stay back the skin is laced with sticks of dynamite
i'll be burning out
like a shooting star
a thousand pretty lights
assail these sinking feelings
i should be on trial
for everything i haven't done
i should be on trial
for everything i haven't done

5. Alert The Audience!

Passive, Aggressive, Confessing, Repressive
Structurally uncertain, transparent, transgressive
i've stumbled into something and i don't know what it is.
All I-beams, bolts and plaster, corners painted in piss.
Mistakes are the brakes that i'm cutting on me.
Fast down the hill, impossibly free.
Faster and faster, i'm burning the gears.
My tears are streaming back into my ears.

My enemies i knew too well, they bickered amongst themselves.
I have a rule, that i love to break.
It ends in tears, cursing and shakes.

I'm a clown and i'm choking on blood, teeth and toungue.
Fuck the spectators, fuck the "he was so young"
Fuck forced sympathy through lifeless glass eyes,
Povichian voyeurs drinking my cries.
Fuck faced trilobites waiting to die.
I can't stand the humor, and i can't stand the lies.

6. Fireflies

Invisible. Inviting visions linger.
This swirl of smoke looks like her slender body.
I see everything in frames now. Golden gilded.
Rippled edges wave goodnight.
Lightsleeper. What's keeping you from waking?
This shallow stare has said it all.
Your cold dark face reminds me of the night we learned to smoke.
Fireflies at our lips.
Thirty seven years until I show my face again.
Steal this moment. Make it worth saving.
Choke down the clouds that cloud your head now.
It would make my gloomy day.
Whoever you are you've stayed away for too long.
The clocks are flipping on their backs.
Don't stay too late. I'll fizzle and fade.
A statue of stoned beliefs.
A monument to monumental dying thoughts.
Let the current take us where they will.
From this hill I can see the world unfold before me.
I'm brooding over broken nights.
I break each sentence like a limb.
This is my exit.
I storm out stage left.
It'll feel like I left you so long ago.
These arms will bleed. I'll be waiting.
I'll be waiting with wishful elation.
Lightsleeper, you could make my gloomy day.
Make this moment worth saving.

7. The March Of The Elephants

The cistern burns
with the sisters who learn
that certainty burns with a fist
the cyst of this growth is a hope
(against hope)
that I loathe, and steel my self to resist.

I am an animal, unprepared.
A club in a drawer full of silverware,
I'm under there and breathily holding.
Her underwear is deserving a scolding.

Disgrace is the color of red that you're looking for.
I'll be wearing that working convenience store.
Oh.

Fuck all the garbage in unforgiving piles.
The landfills stretch out for ten thousand miles.
The cities wear a badge that differentiates
but it's the same exact shit that the dirt and sea hate.

I am an animal, unprepared.

8. Chapter 13: The Hero Appears

the well went dry
the blood thinned out
i scrapped through
a thousand layers
of paint-like years
the secret's in
congested grins
i'm trying to find places to breathe now

and if this were a book
i'd call this song the final chapter
and if you read it
you'd be laughin'
if it could end right now
the last lines would be

my body jolted in
and out of stolen sound waves
the world expands or shrinks
on any given monday
tuesday evening dyes a room blue
friday's window has it's own view

and if this were a book
i'd call this song the final chapter
and if you read it
you'd be laughin'
if it could end right now
the last lines would be

good friend
how loud do
you want life
to shout her
answer in your ear

streetlights are streaming by on stiff necks
connected blurs brand the design of things
keep on counting them
maybe hold your breath
i'm trying to exhale you softly
don't be so vein
i'm not impressed in past-tense
i don't do impressions

the blood has dried
(good friend, how loud do)
now i can wash my hands with tears you cried
(you want life to shout her)
if you could frame this feeling
(good friend, how loud do)
at night it would whisper to me

good friend
how loud do
you want life
to shout her
answer in your ear
[2x]

9. Hesitation Station

Hesitation was the station I used to get on at.
Now it's asshole. Can you picture that?
"Fuck you"s and "Them"s have fucked me up.
An idiot who can't keep his mouth shut.
Oh shit! Oh fuck! It's dicks to suck.
Well, bend me down, I'll pucker up.
Take a chill pill lover, or you're gonna explode.
Take two of these too and you'll find that I know...
That what you learned on your trip to the zoo is
That animals do what animals do.
What a great way to die, what a sad way to cry.
You'll tell me "I Love You" and I'll know it's a lie.
What a great way to die, what a sad way to cry.
You'll tell me you love me...
And I'll know it's a lie.

10. The Revisionist

the sway and swell
flee with her motion
red-gold across my arms
the vicious strokes i painted
a river fills your heart
i'm sorry if i let you down
i know just how you feel tonight
this is never what you wanted
i was searching for myself
in other people's eyes

the mirror's telling half truths
the stolen words finally feel like mine
swollen and sweating (sweating)
off time (off time)
i can see it in your eyes
an ocean floods my heart
i'm sorry that i let you down
you know just how i feel tonight
this is everything i wanted
you've been searching for yourself
in other people's eyes

the revisionist
never gets it perfect
never gets it perfect
the revisionist
never gets you perfect
never gets you perfect

time is never right
the words are never right
[2x]

11. The Ramblin' Boys Of Pleasure

A million times a day I try to fail or fail to try.
It's an easy way to live. It's a lifeless way to die.
I used to hear "Son, you've got a lot to learn."
I used to hear a lot... like the slow dull burn
Of paper and tobacco and the bad breath smoke singin'
"Hey man, lemme tell you a joke."
"Well what's attached to a leash that it made itself?"
"The punchline is the way that you've been fuckin' yourself."

Sit down, shut up. It's a long ride yet.
I'm here to show you something not easy to forget.
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a goddamn shame.
One day until retirement. It was God's way.

I'm ready or not. You're here, i come.
There's tears on my cheeks (there's tears on my cheeks) from being so dumb.

There's proof painted on the roof and it's rainin' and i hate it
i hate it
i hate it
i hate it
[4x]

Things have changed forever.
We're the ramblin' boys of pleasure.
Things have changed things have changed forever.
We're the ramblin' boys of pleasure.
[2x]

12. A Wishful Puppeteer

i haven't seen you since that brooklyn night
i guess it's been about a year by now
cold and rainy, in a poets words
dark and crimson in a drunken way
i was frozen in a window pane
kind of like i was on a movie screen
your hair was darker than i remembered it
i was as awkward as i could have been
so much has changed it seems
nothing ever changes
i found a way to wear a thousand different faces

time creeps into my dreams
breathe deep
fill your lungs with me

headaches, stalemates
chest names, i'm trembling
ink stains, text to burn
am i leaving, am i leaving
i found your face
in my dreams the last two nights
what are you doing here
what am i singing for
a window setup groaning to the clutch
the clutch has always been right there for him
i'm sorry i'm pushing her away
i'm dark and crimson in a drunken sway
i'm dark and crimson in a drunken sway
so much has changed it seems
nothing ever changes

13. The Disaster March

There was a time and a place that was all full of mistakes.
And a face that was all full of shit.
I was frustrated and angry.
I was more than alive.
A catcher in the rye.
I was a jet plane, a thin membrane.
Washing and preening and shedding all hope.
I'm Hot Shots Pt. Deux.
I'm Down Periscope.
The rope that I'm hanging from keeps telling me what to do.
I'm pissing on the fire and learning a remarkable truth about you.
Ugly is ugly. Transformation is a dream.
So love what you are, not what you would like to be.
I'm a drunk with a job, I got the pictures to prove it.
I got some junk in my trunk and the dance moves to move it.

I am written on subway walls.
I am bitter when I fall.

Shout me in the streets and parks.
Scrape your voices on the stars.

14. Outro (Hobo Reprise)

Tear us up
and stuff us down the drain
Tear us up
and stuff us down the drain

lyrics added by metalalf - Modify this lyrics