Billiard Player Song (2004 Peel Session)

He cursed like a billiard player

His stick upon the ground

Looks like an old man should be

Off and on, 20

Off and on

He's been here off and on

For 20 years

Off and on

He's been here off and on

Probably never will

It's a frame of mind and a comfortable chair

It's people who've been through what you've been through

You could call it a club, but it's not

I cannot possibly describe

A cigar and the time to use it

And he

Cursed like a billiard player

His walking stick upon the ground

He was a young man

She was a little girl

Had his heart, heart broken

The little girl

She was small

Had his heart broken

And the girl

She was small

He promised her everything

He knew he never had to deliver

He promised her everything

Ask yourself if you could do better

He promised her the unobtainable

Mama walks me out to the pump house

There's no man in the family now

Guess there's no point in asking

If I'm going back to school now, anyhow

They let him walk out in the yard

See one sunrise and sunset each

He gets to pick his last meal

He says, "I'll eat fuck all

Wrapped in nothing!

If I can eat it out there on the beach."

And it's gonna be a hard winter

The first of many hard winters

And it's, it's gonna be

A hard

Winter

You think you've seen hard?

Fuck that, this is hard

It's gonna be a hard

Winter

For her and hers

A hard winter

And a lot of people say she's crazy

Crazy from the sound

Of everything she knows breaking loose and falling down

And you could say crazy, okay, crazy, okay

But I don't think she's crazy

Not in anyway that matters

I think she's alright

She would ask

If she was young

And she didn't know why things were like this

And not in any other way

And he lied to her

He lied to her

He lied to her with a perfectly straight face

A face he was practiced in

From gambling, and other kinds of lying, and things in general