Listen to The Lovesong Writer

Live from 2010's Holiday Show at Starland Ballroom

Live from 2006

Lyrics:

Sitting alone in the dark of a stadium
He whispers his secrets into a cheap guitar
With the flick of his wrist he turns words into melodies
Chords into church bells, fill up the allies
Lovers intwine in the heat of the night
And by dawn are apart in the shivering silences
We will pretend
That its all just made up

The songs that he writes
Are too personal
He cant play them for anyone

When hes all alone, the lovesong writer sings
Ooooh
Can anyone, hear me now?
No one hears him now
So he stumbles through syllables, cut from their sentences
Lost letters call to him, deep in the alphabet
"Please give us meaning"

Pose for me now
You're the broken heart
You're the sigh in the back of the throat
And on the other side
You're the queen of spades
You're the sound that she makes on her way

Theres always a way out
Theres always a way out

When hes all alone, the lovesong writer sings
Ooooh
Can anyone, hear me now?
But no one hears at all
The lovesong writer sits all alone
When he hears the sound of the knock at the door

50 red roses, falling apart
In the hands of someone that you scraped in and left behind
All of the others strolled up and showed up at your door
Staring you down, they said:

Sing for me, sing for me, sing for me now
Sing for me, sing for me, sing for me now
We already are

About the song:

• The song originated from a Steve Pedulla jam.
• It was initially considered to be put on the B-side as they already had a lot of songs for the album.
• The song is a commentary on the love-song genre, how absurd it has become, pantomiming emotions till they don't seem real and how most of these songs have become more about ownership over each other rather than about love.
• It is inspired by the Jonatham Lethem story The Dystopianist, Thinking of His Rival, Is Interrupted by a Knock on the Door from his book Men and Cartoons.
• In the song, the character of the love-song writer represents the whole genre. He writes songs about love affairs with no regard to how it affects the listener. In the end, he is visited by all of his characters who demand he sings for them because he made them the way they are and they won't have it. Full explanation.

What are your thoughts on the song?

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