Ballgame (Live at St Pancras Old Church)

A good man doesn't drink

But I’ve been drinking alone

So what does that make me?

My hands they always shake

And no one's calling my phone

So what does that make me?

And I know the kid with his guitar so drunk and anxious

Had been done to death, but you showed me what hadn't

I tried it

Because I’m selfish enough to want to get better

But i'm backwards enough not to take any steps to get there

So when you realize it's a pattern, and not a phase

It's what you've become and it's what you will stay

That's ballgame

See, I can't make room in my life for anyone else like me

So I’ve been driving away all the people that could help me

Before they can leave

And I still don’t even know what I need to do

To fix myself, you see?

But I'm trying now, I’m trying now, for the first time

To learn to stay free

There's a clamp across my chest that tightens every time

I lapse into another sorry story

About some miserable collapse

A bronze box I keep encased in glass

And dust off whenever I sing to your city

But lately I've had to come to terms with scope and

Figure out how my problems stack up in a world two steps from ruin

(I don't believe in the rapture)

But, either way, I realize my problems are as small as they could be

Which makes me feel bad for even feeling this bad in the first place

Most days

Cause there are ten wars going on

And all the flags are still waiving

And Dan’s 20 year-old friends are all 30, willing and serving

They're Marines and they showed me

And it makes me sad, it makes me really fucking sad

But at least they act

So I bite my tongue and tell him

‘Brother, you wish them luck', and pray that they come back

To a God I make

And then I drink those thoughts away

I'm really good at that

So when you realize it's a pattern, and not a phase

It's what you've become and it's what you will stay

That's ballgame

She says ‘I wanna get free'

I say ‘Free from what?'

She took her kid by the arm

And said ‘you piss away the things you love'

You'll go auditioning replacements

From church pew, to backyard, to basement

But in the back of your mind

You hope that your true love is waiting

(And it's a gift if she waited)

She's just not gonna come digging for you anymore

So wake up, wake up, cause you're not done

We fix ourselves up, kids

We can learn how to love

The way we're hardwired to love

But let's start with ourselves for once

And mean something for more than 6 months

There's work to be done