There's a middle aged woman; she's dragging her feet.
She carries baskets of clothes to the laundromat
while the Mexican children kick rocks into the street;
and they laugh in a language I don't understand,
but I love them.
Why do I love them?
So the neighborhood is dimming as I smoke on the porch
and watch the people as they pass, enclosed by their cars;
on their faces just anger or disappointment.
I start wishing there was something I could offer them.
A consolation, what could I offer them?
And they are sad in their suburbs; robots water their lawn
and everything they touch gets dusted spotless,
and so they start to believe they've not touched anything at all
and the cars in the driveway only multiply.
They are lost in their houses.
I have heard them sing in the shower,
making speeches to their sister on the telephone
saying, "You come home.
Woman, you come here."
Don't stay so far away from me.
This weather has me wanting love more tangible.
Something I can hold 'cause it's getting cold.
I say, "Hold up our fists to the flame in the sky.
to block out the light that's reaching for our eyes."
'Cause it... 'cause it would blind us. Yeah, it will blind us.
Well, I've locked my actions in the grooves of routine.
So I may never be free of this apathy,
but I wait for a letter that is coming for me.
She sends me pictures of the ocean in an envelope
so there is still hope.
Yes, I can be healed.
There is someone looking for what I've concealed
in my secret drawer, in my pockets deep.
You will find the reasons I can't sleep and you will still want me.
But will you still want me? Will you still want...?
Well, I say come for the week.
You can sleep in my bed,
and pass through my life like a dream in my head.
It will... it will be easy. I will make it easy.
But all I have for the moment is a song to pass the time;
a melody to keep me from worrying.
Oh, some simple progression to keep my fingers busy,
and words that are sure to come back to me
and they'll be laughing, and they'll be laughing.
My mediocrity.
My mediocrity.
(and they'll be laughing.)