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If They Could Only See Us Now

from Failed Novels by Sam Steffen

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lyrics

My love sends me roses cause she knows I’m allergic
She pulls off the petals and marks the box ‘urgent’
Then she stands in the doorway and makes no disturbance
Even the light seems to soften for her

She used to come closer we used to be gentle
To say how I loved her was unsentimental
And everyone said we had so much potential
But nobody knew how unhappy we were

I used to get sore about breaking a promise
I didn’t want love if it couldn’t be honest
But of all my regrets I’d have to say that the fondest
Is that I will never forget you again

You were the deathbed and I was the funeral
You were a number and I was a numeral
I never thought once to think that unusual
Until I thought it over and over again

And now that I have the advantage of hindsight
And all of my life has been cast in the limelight
I can see I was wrong but don’t know how to make right
All of the troubles you wear on your brow

If only I could endure what I’m made of
If I could explain what I was afraid of
Maybe that’d be enough to complete us
To hear from those who know that they need us
Just what they would think if they could only see us now

Sometimes the day feels like a tedious project
A striving one tries for without any object
Without even laws or so much as a precept
To steer you or guide you or lead you back home

You have to make do with what you’ve been given
Say that you meant to be where you were driven
Pretend you’re content with the life that you’re living
And maybe they’ll promise to leave you alone

You said you were sick and I hoped you’d get better
I wrote you a song in the form of a letter
And your father wrote back and said, You’d better forget her
Whoever this is that you think that you are

I thought what’s forbidden was all that’s worth loving
I thought he was kidding, didn’t know he was bluffing
You take the long shot and you’ll end up with nothing
His postscript I kept like the pain of a scar

But after a while I spose you get used to
Knowing the things that used to confuse you
And even the habits to which they introduced you
Begin to seem like you need them somehow

If only I had a little more imagination
If I could withstand any duller sensation
Or maybe if they would only heed us
Whenever we told them to please believe us
Perhaps they would hear if they could only see us now

The anguish pours out in a language of nonsense
The present and future are both in the past tense
And history sits on the rim of a sequence
It cannot acknowledge and will not restart

What is the point though, of making distinctions?
Between an injustice and just an extinction
There’s only a ballet of juxtapositions
And all of the dancers are moving apart

The prophets are drafting their new manifestos
Leaving them published in coffeeshop windows
And sprayed on the backsides of boxcars whose cargoes
Are headed for a junkyard outside of Tucson

Musicians are musing composing their movements
Jesters suggesting digestive amusements
To nobles bequeathing their thrones to a nuisance
Who will sell his own birthright before he moves on

And when it comes down to the easiest option
To simply proceed without care or precaution
To throw up your hands at the back of the auction
And say that you’ll pay it back some day somehow

Will you remind me of the original prices
We paid to be left to our own devices
They said not to snap at the hands that feed us
Sometimes I wonder how they would treat us
And what they would think if they could only see us now

She never wore cotton she always wore satin
When I first met her, she only spoke latin
And she made me promise to let nothing happen
I couldn’t undo or take back if I did

You’ve taken advice from your supposed superiors
Whose practiced experience would not stoop to hear yours
You’ve learned every inch of all the interiors
But your nakedness somehow remains rather well hid

I lived for a year as the ghost of an attic
Seeking a way that was more democratic
Screaming lost verbs in a downpour of static
Beneath a large hole I had carved in the roof

And then I awoke as from a terrible nightmare
Groping the darkness and tangled in your hair
Murmuring echoes I recall reading somewhere
That was about when I parted with Truth

As the voices of angels surround the cathedrals
And stand with the peasants who begin the upheavals
And teach it was goods that gave birth to the evils
With which we’ve been dealing our whole lives til now

Will you recall why it was that we came here
And what we are doing inside this container
What were the words we were told that would ease us
Angel, joseph, mary, jesus,
What would they think if they could only see us now?

credits

from Failed Novels, released November 3, 2014

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Sam Steffen Boise, Idaho

Sam Steffen is a Pennsylvania-bred, Boise-based singer-songwriter whose songs are the torch-wood for a new generation of folk music that has learned from the best stuff in the tradition and aims in spite of everything to keep the human spirit alive and kicking. A versatile musician and skilled finger-picker, Sam is at heart a story-teller, and a prolific one. ... more

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