Here we go   Can I get a goddamn timpany roll to start this goddamn song?   Tonight, it is 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's 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?s reduced to names on a shoppin' list   While a coroner kneels beneath a great wooden crucifix   He knows there's worse things than bein' 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?   An ambition, I?ve found, can lead only to failure   I do not read the reviews, no, I am not singin' for you      Well, I stood droppin' 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 somethin' real   At least a telephone call home      Well, my teachers, they built this retaining wall 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's 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 forward, repeatin' 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      Well, 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   Starin' so far away      I tried talking, just whispered, "So sorry, so selfish"   He stopped me and said, "Child, I love you regardless   And 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"      And so now I try to keep up, I?ve been exchangin' my currency   While a million objects pass through my periphery   Now I?m rubbin' my eyes 'cause they?re startin' to bother me   I?ve been starin' 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