Waste Of Paint lyrics

Song information

Artist: Bright Eyes
Album: Lifted Or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground

Lyrics

Waste of paint
Bright eyes

I have a friend, he is mostly made 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
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're blind
You see
No beauty could have come from me
I'm 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 happened
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
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
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's some kind of lottery
Where you scratch and see
What's underneath
It's "sorry"
Just one cherry
Or "play again."
Get lucky

So I've been hanging out down by the train's 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 lives one track
Can't they see it's pointless?
But just then, my knees
Give under me
My head feels weak
And suddenly
It's clear to see
It's 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 can 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
I hear the sound escaping as an echo
Sloping off the ceiling at an angle
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
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's all I want
To be loved
And believe
In my soul
In my soul
In my soul
In my soul