Candles

Seat 12C SAS Copenhagen to Stockholm

Stockholm would be my first choice for a European second home

Feel like I live there in another life

I dreamed that I lived in an old flat there once

And it was Christmas time

In real life, I brought home a lot of nice gifts from Sweden

A [?] from Malmö and some ice-cube trays from IKEA

And a collection of old silverware that an ex-girlfriend’s father sold me from his antique shop

And she gave me a beautiful blue ceramic bowl that’s still on my kitchen table

Got a lot of good memories here in Stockholm

Last time I saw Elliott Smith was at the Accelerator Festival

July 5th 2000, a beautiful sunny day

I wish I would’ve hugged him goodbye

But I figured I’d see him again another day

Maybe in San Francisco or L.A

But as things turned out it didn’t work out that way

And my favorite restaurant in Stockholm, Sweden

Is right down the road

It’s called Pelican

I like the salmon but I never eat the reindeer

Something about the idea of eating reindeer brings my eyes to tears

I don’t understand how any of you can eat reindeer

When I was a little kid my favorite Christmas special was Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer

He had that stuff nose voice

And I still love Rudolph

I saw a reindeer carpaccio on the menu recently

And i wanted to shoot myself

I love you Sweden I really do

But please let the reindeer run free

For the sweetest animals kill  a moose or a buffalo

If that’s what you gotta do to taste gamey meat

Please leave the reindeer alone

Please pass on that reindeer dish

Please do it for me

Please grant me this one wish

Please leave the reindeer alone

Please pass on that reindeer dish

Please do it for me

Please grant me just this one wish

The first time I ever played Stockholm

A kid walked up to me on stage

And said, “Mark, do you realize that you are god in Sweden?”

I said, “You’re very young and that’s a foolish thing for you to say and you’re tripping

Like I said you’re young

You’re gonna see that somebody else is gonna come along and be god in Sweden”

And later on came José González and Sigur Rós

If I die tomorrow, I’ll be blurbs on online magazines for 48 hours

You’d all be fine, you’d say, “Hey I met him once and he didn’t seem like he wanted to talk to me”

Then you’d say, “Look who’s headlining at Roskilde? The Gorillaz”

So back to Sweden and all the things I love about it

A good friend of mine is here and I always make time for her

When she sees me I think something about me makes her glow

And when I see her something about her makes me glow

She’s one of those friends I’ll always know

She uplifts me and I uplift her

And that’s an essential part of being on the road and being on tour

There's so much stress on the road and it can make you edgy

So surround yourself with the people who care about you and make you happy

Who don’t bring you down and who love you unconditionally

As my lawyer says, “Never engage with crazy”

And Isaiah says, “To further yourself you gotta step over the dead bodies”

There is something about Sweden to me that is meditative

Everyone seems like they’re on some kind of sedative

When I was a kid I loved [?]

And [?] Valium

When I’m in Sweden, I kinda feel like I’m on 5mg of Valium

Because the Swedish people, they seem like they’re on Valium

Or they smoked a little bit of pot

It’s in their eyes, they all look so tranquillike cats they don’t blink a lot

Don’t know if it’s the darkness or if it’s the things that they’re eatin’

There’s a serenity I feel whenever I’m in Sweden

I like the candles in the doorways of the hotels

I like the candles on their dinner tables

You guys put candles everywhere

You even put them in the hotel elevators

That’s one of my favorite favorite things about Sweden

The candles

The candles

The candles

The candles

The candles

The candles

The candles

The candles

The candles

The candles

The candles

The candles

The candles

The candles

The candles

‘Cause when I was a kid my dad wouldn’t let me burn candles

I’d light incense or candles in my room

And my dad would walk up and say

“Goddamnit Mark, put those fucking candles out

You’re gonna burn the whole goddamn house down”

And let me tell you a story

My dad turned out to be right

Later on in 2004 I left a candle burning beside a flower pot

It was the summer and all of the flowers were dried up

I went for a walk to the marina and back

But when I was gone, those flowers went up

And when I came home, my door was all boarded up with firewood

I broke it down, it looked like my whole apartment floor was covered in charcoal

And I looked around and my whole kitchen wall was gone

Some guys were doing construction in the building next door

And they saw the fire and they called the fire department

Luckily for me the fire department is two blocks away from my apartment

So they came and they put the fire out

Had they not been there to see it

I would surely be doing theater for a licenses in San Quentin prison

Burning an apartment down and killing a few people in America

That’s called third degree murder

That’s when you kill somebody for negligence

And being careless

I used to get pissed off at my dad when he’d tell me what to do

And he’d have a fit

But as it turns out with the candles he was not clowning around

He was right and not wrong

I was spaced out my head was in the clouds

And I almost burned my whole apartment building down

But the Swedes seemed to be in control of the candle situation

The Swedes are smarter and more organized than Americans

I know this isn’t much of a song and the ending is even worse

It could’ve been better

But stewardess came around and just told me to shut my laptop off

I have more things to say in regards to how much I love Stockholm

And all the things I love about it besides candles and more clocks and doff blue ceramic bowls

But like I said, the stewardess came by and said, “Sir, please put your laptop away”

I said, “Jesus Christ, what the fuck?

I’ve got this huge concert tonight in Stockholm

And I have this perfect song I was going to sing to my audience”

She said, “Sir, please put it away now”

I say “Okay, goddamnit”

And I close my laptop down

And that’s my unfinished song

From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm

And this is my unfinished song

From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm

And this is my unfinished song

From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm

And this is my incomplete song

From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm

And this is my incomplete song

From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm

And this is my incomplete song

From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm

And this is my incomplete song

From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm

And this is my incomplete song

From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm

And this is my incomplete song

From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm

And this is my incomplete song

From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines from Copenhagen to Stockholm

And this is my unfinished song

From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm

And this is my incomplete song

From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm

And this is my incomplete song

From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm

And this is my incomplete song

From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm

And this is my incomplete song

From seat 12C Scandinavian Airlines Copenhagen to Stockholm