Lyrics Achilles and the Tortoise - Buck 65

Achilles and the Tortoise

This collection of sketches, rough and scattered, is arranged by instinct.
There’s entropy at work, but mostly it happened by accident
Sure a story goes with this, but for it to make sense you’d have to be me,
And for it to make dollars I would have to be something I despise,
Don’t ask me how I managed, no one gets paid to make change,
Every morning I salute the flag, turn, grab the fingers of my left hand behind
my back and continue my search.
I’m wondering how I got here,
Who besides me is responsible?
I’m not the young man I was when I first wrote the code,
Now I dont have it in me to fuss over much.
I need sleep… more than ever before.
What remains of my violence is so precious that I keep it all of it to myself.
What frightens me most now is my gradual loss of hearing.
So i’m guided more and more by vibes.
I shield my eyes from flickering images and document my dreams with as much
detail as possible.
I figure I’ll write my book when its all I can do, but I don’t know.
Have you any idea how hot these sands are?
Ya, i come in contact with the odd scavenger here and there, but those
encounters rarely amount to much
I just gaze the same few black and white photographs:
Distant loves, long lost souls.
diamonds of my most glorious moments,
I remember the gold rush
Ya, she makes me laugh now to think of the risks I took
The monuments will remain, and thats all that matters but the question always
becomes:
'Am I happy?'
When young, we mourn for one woman,
When we grow old, for woman in general,
The tradgey in life is man is never free,
Yet strives for what can never be,
The thing most feared in secret, always happens: my life, my love,
where are they now?
But the more the pain grows, the more this instinct for life somehow asserts
itself,
The necessary beauty in life is giving yourself to it completely.
Only later will it clarify itself as not coherant
I wandered the fields and listen for the sound of drums
The colder the ground becomes the closer I get I home
The planets not fit to roam but with all the chaos
But, when I saw the savages I played the law of averages
And when the river splits in half, I start to lose my wits and laugh
And cry at the same time, there’s nothing I can do about it
Even though I wouldn’t doubt it, if the winds began to blow
And carry the sounds of my voice to the lands below
So I put my hands around my mouth and hollered to the sunken city
That, wallows in the filth of its own drunken pity
And wait to see a signal but a signal is never seen
Eventually fatigue builds inside me exponentially and so I sleep
And dream that I’m able to fly
«They will respect a man with wings!»
Later I awake, in agony and learn
That while I was sleeping the city had burned
Shrugging my shoulders, I paused and gathered thoughts
Think twice about staying put, then decide I rather not
So I press on in my agnostic pilgrimage
Knowing that I can swim deeper than the grim reaper
Ready for whatever sea creatures may abound
When the water swallows me and not the other way around
Survival saw me through the mechanical district
Starvation leads to being cannibalistic
I have to rely on cons and silence and non talking quick
Defending myself with nothing but this walking stick
I’ve never had friends and no parental guidance
I’m wild at heart and weird on top, I’m feared nonstop
Even though my rage is worn out
My life’s a book with several pages torn out.
I just climb trees and look for rhythm everywhere.
I used to be the town crier in a city of stone throwers
Until my soul was laid bare and displayed in the pearled square
Ignored, more than a lot, not less, no one understood my thought, process
I was gagged and bound over noise complaints
But, commanding the resolve that destroys constraints
I found my escape in a melding of memories
The next thing I know, I’m rowing this boat
And blowing this note on an old tarnished trumpet
(Pause for trumpet sample)
Ever since then I’ve been wondering lots
Watching the sky and pondering thoughts
Strange angel, music box genie
Behind for some time and now I’m blind in one eye
And how this happened exactly will never be known
My thoughts take the shape of the hang-man's house
Never fails in time-traveling salesman visiting