Song Lyrics

There is a man holding a megaphone
So he must have been the voice of God
The bystanders claimed they saw angels
Flying up and down the block
Well, they must have been attached to wires
I saw one laying in the lawn with a broken arm
So I called 911
So that's one less founded opinion
One more cause for a dispute
So the street filled like a basin
Up with cameras and their crews
And they washed away the rumors
Leaving just the concrete truth
It was a spectacle
No, I, I mean a miracle
So then I fell like that girl from a balance beam
A gymnasium of eyes were all holding on to me
I lifted one foot to cross the other and I felt myself slipping
It was a small mistake
Sometimes that's all it takes

Now I'm staring at my wrist
Hoping that the timing is right
When the planets will align
There will be no planets to align
Just the carcass of the sun
And those little painted marbles
Spinning senseless through an endless black sky

(And so it never started and it will never stop just like I am and you are)

It was in a foreign hotel's bathtub
I baptized myself in change
And one by one I drowned all of the people I had been
I emerged to find the parallels were fewer
I was cleansed
I looked in the mirror and someone new was there
Still I was as helpless as a chess piece
When I was lifted up by someone's hand
And delivered from the corner
My enemies had got me in
But in all of my salvation I still felt imprisoned inside
That holding cell that is myself
So I wait for the day when I'll hear the key
As it turns in the lock and the guard will say to me
"Oh, my patient prisoner, you have waited for this day and finally
You are free! You are free! You are freezing"

Now I'm staring at the sun waiting for it to explode
Because a day is gonna come
Don't know when but it will come
And then we will finally know the way out of here

And I will throw away this wrinkled map
And my chart of stars and compass, cracked
And I'll climb that tree all wet with sap
To avoid the hungry beasts below
I'll cut out my lover's tongue and sing
Of a graveyard gray and a garden green
And then we won't have worry no more
No, we won't ever worry again
About how this song or story ends
About how this song and story will end

Conor Oberst

The duration of From a Balance Beam is 3:41 minutes and seconds.