Why do I lie when I sing?
What is it that music brings?
Hidden in rhyme, all the the things,
The jagged lines that still sting...
Polished a clean
All the bright melodies.
Why do I lie to myself?
Why won't I try to simply tell it?
It's not that I don't believe.
It's that I don't seem to need to anymore.
It's not that I want to be free of it.
It's just that I can't....
Can't recall what the truth is.
Can't recall, so I sing.
It's not that I won't believe.
Sometimes it's caught on the tip of my tongue.
It's not that I need to be free of it.
It's just that I can't....
Don't remind me. Don't remind me.
Don't remind me of all I've done wrong.
I have not forgotten that.
No, I have not forgotten that...
Standing here at the mirror
Like a ghost at the door.
I used to question. I used to ask.
I used to bother. I used to look between the masks.
It's not that I don't believe.
It's that I don't seem to need to anymore.
It's not that I want to be free of it.
It's just that I can't....
I've tried to capture it all on paper.
I've crumpled all of it up and it away.
The trash man comes tomorrow anyway;
He haul it away.
It's not that I don't believe.
It's that I don't seem to need to anymore.
It's not that I want to be free of it,
Except when I sing....
©2005 TOBIN MUELLER
Written on Cape Cod, this song came after listening to a ton of David Crosby and Jackson Browne. I was thinking about how to make a meta-song: a song that made "the song" into a metaphor. I wrote it under the working title "House of Cards" but never worked the phrase into the lyrics.
I first relased this song as an ending to my September 11 Project - Ten Years Later.
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