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Waiting on the Man

from Between All the Letters by Colouring Cats

/

lyrics

It’s all transient connections, crowded bookstores, and the promise of love,
It’s the loneliness, long hours, and the constant threat of lining up.

And you can live out with the gunshots, you can bartend on the weekends,
But there’s a weight upon your shoulders, because at some point they will raise the rent.

And I’m talking to the man with the horn-rimmed glasses,
He’s threatening to leave because they only ever promise spring.
And I’m waiting for a train and now it’s almost been an hour,
I’m trying to find a place to stand that smells a tiny bit less awful than this.

It’s all transplants and migration and the natives aren’t just holding their tongues.
Now Spike Lee is on his high-horse 'bout how whitey just keeps fucking it up.

And there’s a sense of hesitation as a beautiful voice echoes my way,
Keep the performance at a distance – I don’t want to feel obliged to pay.

Now a scream from down the hall's become white noise, just like the traffic
I hear it with my ears, I guess, but not enough to make me think.
If someone pauses for a second on the left side of the sidewalk,
It’s all that I can do to stop myself from throwing out some limb.

I was led to believe that this place never ever would sleep,
Yet come four AM it’s last call,
And the people pour onto the streets.

And I know it’s a fiction,
I know it’s just glass and concrete,
But I thought that numerical grid might mean something for me.

It’s a feeling in your stomach that you’re not sure why you’re waking up.
Not like you’re all that money hungry, but the bills they just keep piling up.

You suspect things might have changed, since CBGB’s closed their doors to punk,
All the children – so well spoken, all the strollers parked in bars and pubs.

But there’s something about the snow
When it falls over the city,
It belies the cold I feel
Makes me believe there must be something I’ve missed.

There’s something about the pain
That makes not quitting seem a victory,
Drop our standards down so low that
We’re just happy if the beating’s swift.

I was led to believe
That this land was the land of the free,
But when most of the kitchen
Are paid in slave wages,
It’s hard to agree.

And I know that it’s nice to eat cheap
To drink almost for free
But this empire would fall
If they opened the curtain
On what’s underneath.

This empire would fall
If they opened the curtain
On what’s underneath.

This empire would fall
If they opened the curtain
On what’s underneath.

credits

from Between All the Letters, released November 17, 2018

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Colouring Cats Melbourne, Australia

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