Day to day, the great charade
Masks worn by day in plain
Pain washed away by casks
It's all a part of the Fake Parade

Blood soaked life grenade
Pounding away, offered up in hand
Man made and mad sounding
Tattered sleeve worn stained

Give it up for this Fake Parade
Give it up for mistakes made

No hook lines or chorus
Oh Lord, dearly departed
Discarded so clearly, Lord knows
They sing dead songs for us

Life is not a masquerade
Brave it all, show your face
Pace along into the grave
One more step in the Fake Parade

Give it up for this Fake Parade
Give it up for mistakes made

I want to be the rust on your skin
Evidence of your changing chemical nature
I want to waste away with you
Spine of iron
Heart of stone

I heard there was a dancing man
Somewhere deep inside
A cave lit only by candles
And that he didn't realize how
The world could be so bright
Because all he knew was shadows

You told me a story once
About a little old lady who
Lived inside of my left shoe
And I never wore it again
So she wouldn't have to keep
Rearranging her bedroom
I wonder if that's how God feels
About inhabiting me

See there's a lack of something
A wondrous nothing really
That I hear humming at night
Lying in tossed sheets and
Hoping the world isn't as dark
As it wants me to believe
It is

All I see is shadows
Dancing against the rock
Strung up by my ankles
When the blood rush in my
head became a familiar face
I knew you would too
That's the way it seems to go
All the love we never knew
We needed finds us
Somewhere between hopelessness
And calling it quits

This is what we've come to
A warm beer and a
Cold kiss goodnight
Nothing loving about the spite
I hear it in your voice
When you say you won't ever leave
I never said you were the only one
Oh no, you're not the only one
But you're the only one I want

So stay here with me
A quiet place where we can sleep
The world is coming for you
And I can't see the shadow so I
I know it must be the truth
That's gonna take you away from this
Empty nest and refill me with emptiness
She'll never leave those whom she gazes into
She only waits for love to leave again

The permanent impermanence of loss
Keeps me hanging on to a
Foreign hope of a traveler's kindness
Don't let go, there's nothing to look through
Only you
With a blood rush to the head
And shadows dancing familiar

It's another pointless night in a semi pointless life
Devoid of light and aching for strife
I'll wait for the courage to give up on hope and turn out my eyes

There's movement and there's heat somewhere outside the door
I've been there, so long, so far before you graced the sweaty floor
The dancing fools and turbulent intellectuals made dim by another and another one too many
How they abandon themselves forever, an escape they embrace unconditionally, so ready

In the deep night from which I abstain, you're out there waiting
For someone better, for someone to fit a malformed mold
While I sit debating the merits of another new love or an old affair that's always failing
In my favorite chair, guitar in the corner, the words I sing seem cold

This isn't real, I tell myself, it's a finger in the dam
There's water leaking through, it's always coming for you
How long can you stay here, denying the inevitable, let it be broken
Let the flood wash you away, wake up as someone new

Because change is worth the pain
Because theres more to life than waiting to die
Because she isn't waiting for you
Because she never will
So pick yourself up and carry yourself home
Wake up as someone new