Warren wanted a Beach Boys thing for this one, and Carl Wilson and Billy Hinsche came in, with Carl arranging the vocal parts. The other harmony vocalists (credited as the "Gentlemen Boys") were Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, Zevon's longtime backers Waddy Wachtel and Jorge Calderon, and Linda Rondstadt/Stone Poneys guitarist Kenny Edwards.
Found the throughline
For all humankind
If given the time
They'll blow up or walk on the moon
It's just what they do
For personal gain
On Thanksgiving Day
I joined the parade
I stood at the top of the float
And threw out a rose
Watched a blast from the past
Indigenous dance
Started to laugh
And then I just started to cry
This world is waving goodbye
So cut a rug let's throw a party
Birthday cards for everyone
Swallow hard and say you're sorry
Just admit what you have done
I studied your work
Like architecture
Cathedral of words
The meaning's not easy to tell
Comes back around on itself
Admirers, your biographer
The odometer
There's no way to turn back the clock
It's gonna to run 'til it stops
So excited to play
Turned up all the way
Electric, ecstatic, psychotic
Jumped into the drums
Was pandemonium
So if it's time, let's go together
I will be your ballast now
Let's sail into that stormy weather
No matter how it turns out
I just want to stand by your side
When everyone calls you a lie
I'll be your shield
There's still some truth worth defending
Let's stroll to the edge of the cliff
Stop here and give me a kiss
Now we're walking on air
There's no hell beneath our feet
If it every occurred
Just once in the world
A love as absurd
As ours I would scream what we lost
From the mountaintop
For all humankind
If given the time
They'll blow up or walk on the moon
It's just what they do
For personal gain
On Thanksgiving Day
I joined the parade
I stood at the top of the float
And threw out a rose
Watched a blast from the past
Indigenous dance
Started to laugh
And then I just started to cry
This world is waving goodbye
So cut a rug let's throw a party
Birthday cards for everyone
Swallow hard and say you're sorry
Just admit what you have done
I studied your work
Like architecture
Cathedral of words
The meaning's not easy to tell
Comes back around on itself
Admirers, your biographer
The odometer
There's no way to turn back the clock
It's gonna to run 'til it stops
So excited to play
Turned up all the way
Electric, ecstatic, psychotic
Jumped into the drums
Was pandemonium
So if it's time, let's go together
I will be your ballast now
Let's sail into that stormy weather
No matter how it turns out
I just want to stand by your side
When everyone calls you a lie
I'll be your shield
There's still some truth worth defending
Let's stroll to the edge of the cliff
Stop here and give me a kiss
Now we're walking on air
There's no hell beneath our feet
If it every occurred
Just once in the world
A love as absurd
As ours I would scream what we lost
From the mountaintop
Lyrics submitted by flyingxpony
Just Once in the World Lyrics as written by Miwi La Lupa Conor Oberst
Lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
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