Waste of Paint

I have a friend, he is made mostly of pain
And he wakes up, drives to work, and then straight back home again
He once cut one of my nightmares out of paper
Well, I thought it was beautiful, I put it on a record cover
And I tried to tell him he had a sense
Of color and composition so magnificent

And he said, "Thank you, please but your flattery
Is truly not becoming me, your eyes are poor
You are blind, you see, no beauty could have come from me
I am a waste of breath, of space, of time"

I knew a woman, she was dignified and true
And her love for her man was one of her many virtues
Until one day, she found out that he had lied
And she decided the rest of her life from that point on would be a lie
But she was grateful for everything that had happens
And she was anxious for all that would come next?

But then she wept, what did you expect?
In that big, old house with the cars she kept
And "Such is life," she often said
With one day leading her to the next
You get a little closer to your death, which was fine with her
She never got upset and with all the days she may have left
She would never clean another mess or fold his shirts or look her best
She was free to waste away alone

Last night, my brother, he got drunk and drove
And this cop, he pulled him off to the side of the road
And he said, "Officer, officer, you got the wrong man
No, no, I'm a student of medicine, a son of a banker
You don't understand"
The cop said, "No one got hurt, you should be thankful
And your carelessness, it is something awful

And no, I can't just let you go
And though your father's name is known
Your decisions now are yours alone
You are nothing but a stepping stone
On a path to debt, to loss, to shame"

The last few months I have been living with this couple
Yeah, you know, the kind who buy everything in doubles
Oh, they fit together, like a puzzle
And I love their love and I am thankful
That someone actually receives the prize that was promised
By all those fairy tales that drugged us

And they still do me, I'm sick, lonely
No laurel tree, just green envy
Will my number come up eventually?
Like love is some kind of lottery
Where you scratch and see what's underneath
It's 'sorry, just one cherry', 'play again', 'get lucky'

So I have been hanging out down by the trains depot
No, I don't ride, I just sit and watch the people there
And they remind me of wind up cars in motion
The way they spin and turn and jockey for positions
And I want to scream out that it all is nonsense
All your live's one track, can't they see it's pointless?
But then, my knees give under me

My head feels weak and suddenly it is clear to see
It is not them but me, who has lost my self-identity
As I hide behind these books I read, while scribbling my poetry
Like art could save a wretch like me
With some ideal ideology that no one could hope to achieve
And I am never real, it is just a sketch in me
And everything I made is trite and cheap and a waste
Of paint, of tape, of time

So now I park my car down by the cathedral
Where the floodlights point up at the steeples
Choir practice was filling up with people
Could hear the sound escaping as an echo
Sloping off the ceiling at an angle
And when the voices blend they sound like angels
I hope there's some room still in the middle
But when I lift my voice up now to reach them
The range is too high, way up in Heaven

And so I hold my tongue, forget the song
Tie my shoe, start walking off
And try to just keep moving on
With my broken heart and my absent God
And I have no faith but it is all I want
To be loved and believe in my soul
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul