The Mountain Goats Album

Breaking the signal
So it's totally unreadable
Drinking the dregs
Eating the utterly inedible
We do what we do
All for you
All dressed up
Black hat and white cane
Slowly the circling the drain
Ready for the future
Ready for the world about to come

Shooting the sequel before the treatment's even finished
Sanding numbers off the monojects
As our slight returns diminish
We are what we are
Get in the goddamn car
Smiling faces flawlessly rehearsed
We are sleek and beautiful
We are cursed
Ready for the future
Ready for the world about to come

Holt Boulevard
Between Gary and White
Hooked up with some friends at the Travelodge
Set ourselves up for the night

Carpenter ants in the dresser
Flies in the screen
It will be too late by the time we learn
What these cryptic symbols mean

And I dreamt of a house
Haunted by all you tweakers with your hands out
And the headstones climbed up the hills
And the headstones climbed up the hills

Send somebody out for soda
Comb through the carpet for clues
Reflective tape on our sweatpants
Big holes in our shoes
Every couple minutes someone says he can't stand it any more
Laugh lines on our faces
Scale maps of the ocean floor

And I dreamt of a camera
Pointing out from inside the televsion
And the aperture yawning and blinking
And the headstones climbed up the hills

If anybody comes to see me
Tell 'em they just missed me by a minute
If anybody comes in to our room while we're asleep
I hope they incinerate everybody in it

And I dreamt of a factory
Where they manufactured what I needed
Using shiny new machines
And the headstones climbed up the hills

Gentle hum of the old machines
Here we come scrubbed and scoured
Patches on our jeans
When the drone sounds
In the cool night wind
We pick up the call
Kick all the traces in
Hungry for love
Ready to drown
So tie down the sails
We're going downtown

Great big drain on the power grid
You may not like Tate's methods
But you've got to admit
She's a real nice kid
We walk light
Down the wires
Higher than weather baloons
Empty hearts on fire
Hungry for love
Ready to drown
So tie down the sails tonight
We're going downtown

Martin calls to say he's sending old electrical equipment
That's good we can always use some more electrical equipment

In the cold clear light of day down here
Everyone's a monster
That's cool with all of us
We've been past the point of help since early April

Susan and her notebook
Freehand drawings of Lon Chaney
Blueprints for geodesic domes
Recipies for cake

Yeah we're all here
Chewing our tongues off
Waiting for the fever to break

When we walk out in the sunlight we tell every we know it hurts our eyes
When the real reason we don't like it is that it makes us wonder if we're dying

And Martin's found an old trunk full of stage makeup in the basement
And he's sending it along
We can always use more makeup
Yeah more creams and powders

And Carrie's got the feeling
That the people next door
Will close in like a wolf pack
Should we make one small mistake

Yeah we're all here
Chewing our tongues off
Waiting for the fever to break

Boats ease into the harbor bearing real suspicious cargo
And the sunlight on the water
Sets a switch off in your brain
The things that you've got coming will consume you
There's someone waiting out there in an alley with a chain

The ghosts that haunt your building are prepared to take on substance
And the dull pain that you live with isn't getting any duller
There's a closet full of almost-pristine videotape
Documenting sordid little scenes in living color

Here they come
The young thousands
Here they come
The young thousands

You drive east from the ocean with both hands tied on the wheel
And you go past Garden Grove
As the pleasure index rises
The things that you've got coming will do things that you're afraid to
There is someone waiting out there with a mouthful of surprises

The ghosts that haunt your building have been learning how to breathe
They scan the hallways nightly vainly searching for a sign
There must be diamonds somewhere in a place that stinks this bad
There are brighter things than diamonds coming down the line

Here they come
The young thousands
Here they come
The young thousands

The men were here to get your Belgian things
They'll store them for you in an airplane hangar
There's guys in biohazard suits
Mud kicking on their rubber boots
They've come to keep your pretty things from danger

The men were here to get your Belgian things
They'll spend the whole day hauling them downstairs
I shot a roll of thirty-two exposures
My camera groans beneath the weight it bears

I can see you in my sleep
Playing the points for all you're worth
Walking gingerly across the bruised earth

The men were here to get your Belgian things
They waltzed right through the door and went flourescent
Their boots were black and shiny and your treasures gleamed like stars
Bones from deep down in the fertile crescent

The arteries are clogging in the mainframe
There's too much information in the pipes
I saw the mess you left up in the east bedroom
A tiger's never gonna change its stripes
I guess
I guess but Jesus what a mess
One way in and no way out

The men were here to get your Belgian things
And only I was here to see them do it
I wish you had a number where you are
It's hard with no one here to help me through it

I can see you in my sleep
Playing the points for all you're worth
Walking gingerly across the bruised earth

I came to see you up there in intensive care
They had handcuffed you to your bed
There were tubes going into you and out from you
Bright white gauze bandages at your head

I am a mole
Sticking his head above the surface of the earth
I am a mole
Sticking his head above the surface of the earth

And they said "Lights out"
And it was lights out
And they gave you your medication
I know what you want and you know what I want
Information
Information

I am a mole
Sticking his head above the surface of the earth
I am a mole
Sticking his head above the surface of the earth

Out in the desert we'll have no worries
Out in the desert just you and me
I came to see you up there in intensive care
Out in the desert we'll live carefree

I am a mole
Sticking his head above the surface of the earth
I am a mole
Sticking his head above the surface of the earth

Wipe down the windshields and roll down the windows
Let's go where the jackals are breeding
Wrap this bandanna around your head
Don't let anyone see that you're bleeding

Fire up the scanner and keep your eyes on it
Don't speak unless someone speaks to you
Hands in your pockets and sun on your face
The warm love of God coursing through you

Home again
Home again
Garden Grove
Garden Grove

I can remember when we were in high school
Our dreams were like fugitive warlords
Plotting triumphant returns to the city
Keeping Tec-9's tucked under the floorboards
Ah

Now we are practical men of the world
We tether our dreams to the turf
And cruise down these alleys for honey to feed them
Jellyfish riding the surf
Shoving our heads straight into the guts of the stove

Home again
Garden Grove
Garden Grove

I eat a couple Milky Ways for breakfast
I take my coffee light and sweet
Show up for dinner when you tell me to
I heap the sugar high and white on everything I eat

Carry an apple in my pocket
I write reminders on my skin
Clip meaningless pictures from old magazines
I tape them to the walls
It's a bad place I'm in

And nothing you can say or do will stop me
And a thousand dead friends can't stop me

I go back to places I remember
See what's been going on without me
Stare down the strangers at the bus stop
Pretend they've been gossiping about me

White sugar by the spoonful
Canteloupes and grapes and watermelons
I force it down like it was medicine
Anybody asks you tell 'em what you want to tell 'em
But the best you've got is powerless against me
All your little schemes break when they come crashing up against me
Ahh

When I receive the blessing I've got coming
I'm going to raise an ice-cold glass of water
And toast the living and the dead who've gone before me
And my head will throb like an old wound reopening

When I get off the bus down there my children
They all are going to greet me at the station
Like gypsies they will dance around me
And the choral droning sound their voices make will saturate the evening

When I get off the wheel I'm going to stop
And make amends to everyone I've wounded
And when I wave my magic wand
Those few who've slipped the surly bonds will rise like salmon at the spawning

This song is for the rats
Who hurled themselves in to the ocean
When they saw that the explosives in the cargo hold
Were just about to blow

This song is for the soil
That's toxic clear down to the bedrock
Where no thing of consequence can grow
Drop your seeds there
Let them go

Let them all go
Let 'em all go

This song is for the people
Who tell their families that they're sorry
For things they can't and won't feel sorry for

And once there was a desk
And now it's in a storage locker somewhere
And this song is for the stick pins and the cottons
I left in the top drawer

Let 'em all go
Let 'em all go

I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving
And something has got to give

I saw you waiting by the roadside
You didn't know that I was watching
Now you know
Let it all go

Let 'em all go
Let it all go

When I worked down at the liquor store
Guy with a shotgun came raging through the place
Muscled his way behind the counter
I shot him in the face

This morning I went down to the Catholic Church
'Cause something just came over me
Forty-five minutes in the pews
Praying the rosary
When the last days come
We shall see visions
More vivid than sunsets
Brighter than stars
We will recognize each other
And see ourselves for the first time
The way we really are

Decorative grating on my window
Gets a little rustier every year
I don't know how the metal gets rusty
When it never rains here

A year or so ago I worked at a liquor store
And a guy came in
Tried to kill me so I shot him in the face
I would do it again
I would do it again
When the last days come
We shall see visions
More vivid than sunsets
Brighter than stars
We will recognize each other
And see ourselves for the first time
The way we really are

[spoken:] The story of the pigs who ran straightaway into the water and their great triumph

You're gonna send me back to where I came from
Please don't send me back to where I came from
Let me go where the white magnolias grow

You're gonna fit me for that orange jumpsuit
Please don't fit me for that orange jumpsuit
Let me ride where the dragonflies glide

Yeah but you're going to do what you wanna do
No matter what I ask of you
You think you hold the high hand
I've got my doubts
I come from Chino where the asphalt sprouts

Big bus headed southeast from the courthouse
But I'm not headed southeast from the courthouse
Let some mysterious chunk of space debris
Puncture the roof and set me free

And even if I have to go to Claremont
Well I guess I'll just have to go to Claremont
Let me go
Let me lie low

Yeah but you're going to do what you wanna do
No matter what I ask of you
And you send your dark messengers to tempt me
I come from Chino so all your threats are empty