Black Nemo

Meriden months stuck in Indian summers

And Dad's on the line, but I'm fine

"Here's the phone..."

Oh, it's floating away

Going away, on the tide

Crystalized wishes, like kids crying for Christmases

Ticking off lists with their pens in their fists before

Floating away

And going away on the tide

(Running away) on the back of a beast

In a midnight charge down a broken beach

The little stars

They spin the sharpest shards of light on down

(Floating away) to the mouth of the sea

In a morning curled up in a cab

On the edge of the world

The light's a fire of gold lying around

What, when you heard it

Say, forward or furtive

Transferred through a person or mystical blur

Got you going away

Floating away on the tide?

Through Bonner Road basements of "Pitfall" and "Cave-In"

Of crackling tapes, cross-fades

When the song ends I'm going away

I'm floating away on the tide

(Finding a way) down the bloody beach, with the burnt-out cars

Salt-licked by the sea, those slicked-out stars

All screaming from a distant high remove

(Floating away) in the fizzed-out snow of a cathode screen

I saw a broken ghost in an old soap scene

I let his dead and dreamy eyes follow my moves

I had a vision of everything hidden

But always around me

It fought me, it found me

While floating away

Going away on the tide

Shooting through time with my eyes getting glassy and lined

While I watch seasons rocketing past me

They're going away

A little more every day, all the time

On a balcony, at the brilliant sea where all rivers meet

A voice spoke to me and said

"These things have just got to be

I don't know why"

And I said

"Here's to the freeway flasher!

Here's to the desperate dasher!

Guard him and keep him from crashing

On his tear, oh

I know you think you miss him

I know you think you knew him

But you were just passing through him

Light as air he's leaving, there...

He's gone