Les Savy Fav
"Titan / Our Coastal Hymn"

Walk 5 feet above the mountain,
The landscape remains the same.
Walk 5 feet below the ground and
The landscape is unchanged.
I know my home's eroding,
The mountain rises again.
I've seen the ocean rising,
Only the stones remain.
I've heard the Titan stirring,
I don't know who to blame.

This water tastes like wine.
This water tastes like turpentine.
I didn't travel all this way
Just to leave a trail of tears behind.
I didn't travel all this way
Just to drag a tail behind.
I didn't travel all this way
Just to leave my hands and nails behind.

Everybody prays that
The rain will shatter the dam.
The water will turn the mortar to sand.
The engineers have done
All they can
But we're damned.

Little lost lamb,
I've done all I can,
The barn door has blown shut
And the brook is rising up.
To move,
To breath,
We must cherish these.
We have these things like feet.

The townies saw a monster
But the monster saw a man.
The coroner's report
Found a flower in his hand.
Before pitchforks and torches,
Ferdinand made his last stand.
The farmer dropped his sword
And went back to his plow.
The children it had frightened
Were even more scared now.
The minister and mayor
Told the people to be proud.

And when they went to bed
They tossed and turned all night.
But when the sun came up
They never saw the light.
And when the worms had finished them,
They knew that they were right.

This mountain has
A mind of its own.

Rally up my friends
And stand by my bedside,
If I die tonight
Put my head inside a mason jar.
Put it in the ocean
And send it out to sea.
I'm wading because...
And when I hit some shore,
And when my seal is broke,
I'll split my eyes and lips asking,
"Is this a judgment or a joke?"

This is a chance to dissect it.
This is a chance to make it up.
These are the words we've selected.

Don't believe my lies
Of an afterlife spent drifting;
After 40 hours
I sank straight to the bottom
Of the harbor near my home
And there I lay alone,
The spider crab
Is finely clad
Beneath my cloak of brain and bone.

In the basement of the dress shop,
They play poker on the weekends.
Old men trading laces,
It's an absolute disgrace.
They never gave a tip
To the boy who ran the route.
They never gave a shit
What the paper was about,
But when they heard he died
They read the news that day
Just so they could see
What his obituary would say.
It said:
"Rally up my friends
And stand by my bedside!
Rally up my friends
And stay with me tonight!"