In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
He was a dealer of dirty jokes,
Breathing unfiltered Camel smoke
Everything he said was a lie,
But he had me by the rope,
The noose around my neck
With every yawning story that he told
But I still listen dear, with bended ear,
Hoping I'd come close
To touch the truth and hit the root
Of the life that he'd lived
He never ran guns or shot pool
With any famous chicks,
Phil Spector wasn't his bitch,
Waiting on his lips
For a little bit of cocaine,
Or brace for a beautiful witch
I know my words'll slip,
And I know I tell a couple lies,
I'm known to accentuate, exaggerate
In stories all the time,
And I wonder why? Will it magnify
By the time I reach fifty?
And realize my life never turned out
The way I planned it simply?
So I gotta stretch the truth,
And tell the things I never did,
Until I'm running guns with Saddam Husein
And all the stupid kids
So I wonder why he'd tell those lies
And breathe it down my neck,
A bunch of foul smoke inside of my ears
On whiskey breath
And I'm sitting here, a little kid
Right in front of his chair
Telling him "Another story,
Come on, uncle, bend my friggin' ear
I wanna hear the tale,
Tell me time again and over now
How you were running drugs
Across the border
From the north on down
To Alaska, on the oil pipeline
And into Canada, taking 'em down
Into Washington state and doing damage
To the brain that God gave him"
Wondering what I understand
If you don't have the truth,
How can I shake your hand?
See, and I got a couple questions
That make me a little curious, homie,
If'n the story make the man
When the man makes up the story?
There was never stolen cars,
There was always a couple bars,
There was eyes full of stars,
And a lackluster fall of ____ (ours?)
And everything I understood
That you'd done with your life
Has all just been sacrificed
Upon the cross of Truth tonight
See, I've seen it all
Breaking down, a sad old man
With a couple bruised rib cages
And a shaky left hand
His beard is scraggly,
The top of his head is going bald
And it's all peeling away,
Falling back with the stories that he told
And I wonder where
I can find the truth inside this now
It's more than the toast,
It's the crumbs of the motherfucker breaking down
And watching after sixty-five
Years upon this earth
What happens to everything
That you thought made up your worth
And see I know, there's a couple bits
Of truth in all of this
There was no stolen cars,
There were a couple of stolen kisses
A couple of illegitimate kids,
A couple broken bottles
And all the time in prison,
All the time inside the hospital
Was the thing that was real,
Without the mass appeal
The truth is always the ugliest side
So you should polish it up for real
And so it makes you wonder
Why would this mother fucker
Tell me all these lies
And pull the rug out under the covers?
And I'm looking at him now
Staring inside his sunken eyes
And realize beneath the bitter wisdom
And super-sized guy
He's just an old man,
Slow hand, stumbling breath
Just trying to make it up the stairs
Without losing, pains in chest
And I think,
What will happen to me?
When I wake up from this dream
And realize I'm twenty-four, see?
And I got a couple years left,
A couple beers left,
A couple friends left,
A couple grinding gears left
And I'm breaking sweat, wondering
One day, I will be breaking down,
Living in an old folk's town
Wearing my tattered, broken crown
And I'll be waving my hand
For servants that
Answer no beckon call,
Because everyone has left
Standing me holding my balls
And I got to make ends meet
In this thing I call my life
The bitter circle ring that made me
Back to the beginning, right,
I started to help this baby
End it this way in a wheelchair maybe
And now I gotta act,
Maybe explaining the way
That I was so crazy
I tell you why I lived
This stupid lie that I did,
And all the time I spent
Chasing around girls and chicks,
And all the time that ain't for shit
You told me the truth,
The truth is you can't lie
If you gotta try to produce,
Because
Life'll bite you
In the ass in the end
Then you're standing there,
On the corner,
Without any friends
Because all your friends know
What happens after it's done
Because at least one person was there
To witness all the truth, son
Breathing unfiltered Camel smoke
Everything he said was a lie,
But he had me by the rope,
The noose around my neck
With every yawning story that he told
But I still listen dear, with bended ear,
Hoping I'd come close
To touch the truth and hit the root
Of the life that he'd lived
He never ran guns or shot pool
With any famous chicks,
Phil Spector wasn't his bitch,
Waiting on his lips
For a little bit of cocaine,
Or brace for a beautiful witch
I know my words'll slip,
And I know I tell a couple lies,
I'm known to accentuate, exaggerate
In stories all the time,
And I wonder why? Will it magnify
By the time I reach fifty?
And realize my life never turned out
The way I planned it simply?
So I gotta stretch the truth,
And tell the things I never did,
Until I'm running guns with Saddam Husein
And all the stupid kids
So I wonder why he'd tell those lies
And breathe it down my neck,
A bunch of foul smoke inside of my ears
On whiskey breath
And I'm sitting here, a little kid
Right in front of his chair
Telling him "Another story,
Come on, uncle, bend my friggin' ear
I wanna hear the tale,
Tell me time again and over now
How you were running drugs
Across the border
From the north on down
To Alaska, on the oil pipeline
And into Canada, taking 'em down
Into Washington state and doing damage
To the brain that God gave him"
Wondering what I understand
If you don't have the truth,
How can I shake your hand?
See, and I got a couple questions
That make me a little curious, homie,
If'n the story make the man
When the man makes up the story?
There was never stolen cars,
There was always a couple bars,
There was eyes full of stars,
And a lackluster fall of ____ (ours?)
And everything I understood
That you'd done with your life
Has all just been sacrificed
Upon the cross of Truth tonight
See, I've seen it all
Breaking down, a sad old man
With a couple bruised rib cages
And a shaky left hand
His beard is scraggly,
The top of his head is going bald
And it's all peeling away,
Falling back with the stories that he told
And I wonder where
I can find the truth inside this now
It's more than the toast,
It's the crumbs of the motherfucker breaking down
And watching after sixty-five
Years upon this earth
What happens to everything
That you thought made up your worth
And see I know, there's a couple bits
Of truth in all of this
There was no stolen cars,
There were a couple of stolen kisses
A couple of illegitimate kids,
A couple broken bottles
And all the time in prison,
All the time inside the hospital
Was the thing that was real,
Without the mass appeal
The truth is always the ugliest side
So you should polish it up for real
And so it makes you wonder
Why would this mother fucker
Tell me all these lies
And pull the rug out under the covers?
And I'm looking at him now
Staring inside his sunken eyes
And realize beneath the bitter wisdom
And super-sized guy
He's just an old man,
Slow hand, stumbling breath
Just trying to make it up the stairs
Without losing, pains in chest
And I think,
What will happen to me?
When I wake up from this dream
And realize I'm twenty-four, see?
And I got a couple years left,
A couple beers left,
A couple friends left,
A couple grinding gears left
And I'm breaking sweat, wondering
One day, I will be breaking down,
Living in an old folk's town
Wearing my tattered, broken crown
And I'll be waving my hand
For servants that
Answer no beckon call,
Because everyone has left
Standing me holding my balls
And I got to make ends meet
In this thing I call my life
The bitter circle ring that made me
Back to the beginning, right,
I started to help this baby
End it this way in a wheelchair maybe
And now I gotta act,
Maybe explaining the way
That I was so crazy
I tell you why I lived
This stupid lie that I did,
And all the time I spent
Chasing around girls and chicks,
And all the time that ain't for shit
You told me the truth,
The truth is you can't lie
If you gotta try to produce,
Because
Life'll bite you
In the ass in the end
Then you're standing there,
On the corner,
Without any friends
Because all your friends know
What happens after it's done
Because at least one person was there
To witness all the truth, son
Lyrics submitted by Maxitian
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