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Song For a Man

from Welcome to the Revolution by Kyp Harness

/

lyrics

SONG FOR A MAN

I’d like to tell you about my old man
Who works eight hours daily in the company store
Who lives under laws he does not understand
Who fed me and clothed me since the day I was born

And he comes home from work
And he gets himself a beer
And he makes himself a sandwich
And he watches TV
And surveys all he’s worked for each day with his hands
I’d like to tell you about my old man

His mind’s a museum of small battles won
And his memory’s a book that nobody has read
His eyes are survivors which peer from their doorways
Across his dark landscape of the living and the dead

And he wakes with the dawn
And he sleeps with the dusk
On the couch in his house
Before his TV
Far from the callings
From behind the curtains
Of each day’s reminders
Through the toil of his hands
That somehow he has failed
Or somehow come short
On the path of survival
From the dreams of his youth
To the pain of his duties
’Neath the dark clouds of time
In the shadows of death
Where he walks a long mile
Just to say everyday
He does the best that he can
I’d like to tell you about my old man

The joys and the sadness of others can’t reach him
For now he knows neither as each dawning light
Is something to walk through, to silently shoulder
Blind to all extremes flashing through his own life

But he lines up his pleasures
Beside his regrets
And breaks from the clockwork
To drown his dull sorrow
In moments of madness
Culled from the reserve
Shrouding each short step backwards
Each painted grin falling
As he rambles home pissed
At four o’clock in the morning
And he sprawls out asleep
At the head of the table
And he lies there asleep
At the head of the table
And he shouts at his wife
In loud words of self-hatred
Arms thrashing the air
As he aches to know pity
Then he weeps with regret
As he begs her forgiveness
As he holds her tight
In the black of the night
In the house by the tracks
Where the trains crash on nightly
And he fears with a passion all he can’t understand
I’d like to tell you about my old man

One day he may die ’neath the dark silent sky
Alone as his last breath rises and falls
And the world walks on showing no trace of his living
Just like he’d never been born there at all

But from the stage of his follies
To the towers which shadow
The path from his workplace
To the doors of his home
He will play his last card
As the sky folds around him
He will shrug in the darkness
As he extends a hand
As he bears condescension
Unknowingly down
Through the dregs of his laughter
To a cold stony silence
When he laughs much too loudly
At all his own jokes
And he envies and hates
All those well-schooled and rich
And he respects and mistrusts
All those well-schooled and rich
And his sympathy falls
Nowhere outside his vision
As he’s never once left
The town he was born in
Misunderstanding all those
Any different from him
And his words they all rise
In a weak silent wind
As he tells all his children
To be better than him
But he comes home from work
And he gets himself a beer
And he makes himself a sandwich
And he watches TV
And surveys all he’s worked for each day with his hands
I’d like to tell you about my old man

If you cannot accept, don’t try to understand

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credits

from Welcome to the Revolution, released September 2, 2014

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Kyp Harness Toronto, Ontario

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