Lyrics I Was a Lover - TV On The Radio

I Was a Lover

I was a lover, before this war
Held up in a luxury suite, behind a barricaded door
Now that I’ve cleaned up, gone legit
I can see clearly: round hole
Round whole, square peg don’t fit
I’m locked in my bedroom, so send back the clowns
My clone wears a brown shirt, and I seduce him when there’s no one around
Mano y mano, on a bed of nails
Bring it on like a storm, till I knock the wind out of his sails
And we don’t make eye contact, when we have run-in's in town
Just a barely polite nod, and nervous stares towards the ground
I once joined a priest class, plastic, inert
In a slow dance with commerce
Like a lens up a skirt
And we liked to party
And we kept it live
And we had a three volume tome of contemporary slang
To keep a handle on all this jive
Ennui unbridled, let’s talk to kill the time
How many styles did you cycle through before you were mine?
And it’s been a while since we went wild and that’s all fine
But we’re sleepwalking through this trial
And it’s really a crime it’s really a crime it’s really a crime
It’s really criminal
We’re just busy tempting, like fate’s on the nod
Running on empty, bourbon and god
It’s been a while since we knew the way
And it’s been even longer since our plastic priest class
Had a goddamned thing to say
I was a lover before this war