We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Nervous City Breakdown

by Dan Murray

supported by
/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1 CAD  or more

     

about

A musical spoken word piece about mental instability, self-identity, and just being weird.

lyrics

Sunlight breaks into my bedroom
Whispers threats inside my ears
Tells me blindness is a virtue
Tells me good men disappear
Angel angel on my shoulder
Rolling dice behind my back
Tell the man upstairs I'm coming up to see him
Tell the lights to fade to black

--Spoken--

I'm getting worried about you, man.
You're starting to show those signs I've been trained to look out for
Like funny little lumps when you give your sanity a self-exam
You've been howling at blue moons
like a nervous city breakdown
Shovel hungry but chopstick cautious
In a world of red stovetops
When your hands are looking tasty
Call it crazy
if it's comfortable
Be the thing you cannot change
and embrace yourself
Before you spill like stolen candy
From the hands of mischievous angels

Train wreck doesn't quite do you justice
cause you're more than the binary of on and off rails
you are a single car with busted headlights
on a forest dirt road at 200 mph
just praying the turns won't be too sharp or sudden
just praying no trees have sprouted up outside your instincts
So you're running on that hard love fuel
without bothering to filter the shit out
cause it all burns the same
and you know, deep down, when that burnout finally comes
there ain't nobody coming to refill you this deep in the woods

And I am trying so hard to love you
But you keep putting all your eggs in other people's baskets
Like they're ever gonna understand you
cause all your privileges flash Vegas pretty
All your handicaps are poultergeists
You wear straight white male like a stolen suit
With a bright blue tie in a half-windsor half-truth
Living kung-fu dangerous with assassins in your brain
trained in the art of controlling your own two hands
Nobody else has the time to look deep enough to see you
That's why you live here
And they'll be demolishing this house when you move out
so get comfortable, man
Pick out some affordable furniture
Cover the walls in your favourite poets
And accept where you sleep while your alarm clock melts away
Make madness your own Salvador Dali Lama
Cause being understood is overrated

So stick with that not-so-subtlety
Let people think you're trying to fool them
into believing that you and I are different people
Like you didn't want them to know in the first place

You've seen enough life now to know what fuckin' weird looks like
And yeah
You're fuckin' weird
Like moon landings in sugary cereals weird
Like Coltrane saying "cool" before knowing it would catch on weird
Like poetry slam weird
Like tofu anywhere near what I'm about to eat weird
Like a purple people eater eating porcelain packing peanuts weird
Like is it a purple eater of people or an eater of purple people weird
Like pissing on a rug weird
Like a rug really tying the room together weird
You're fuckin' weird

And that's cool, if you haven't noticed
it's been paying the rent for your self-approval for years
Or at least enough that you haven't slit your wrists to make one last painting of your own failure
You're still tying your shoes
You're still telling people you love them
You're still hugging like you mean it
And you're still lookin' for that answer that's been tickling your ears with midnight whispers
and bedside notebooks
You're still trying
And I am still trying so hard to love you
But your eggs are for you
And the rest of them don't need to know
about the science of your mind
or the nature of your heart
love who you want
when you can.
So long as you're on the top of that list
And I can stop having this argument of schizophrenic backflips
And then maybe I can get back to being weird.

--Sung--

Someone told me Heaven's waiting
Someone Told me straight to Hell
Someone told me once I'm not exactly right up there
And I guess that suits me well
Burning bright lights, Nervous City
Shaking cars across the lanes
tremble, tremble, mortal, live the life you're scared to sing
Live the life you're scared to change

credits

released October 28, 2015
Written, composed, recorded and mastered by Dan Murray

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Dan Murray Burlington, Ontario

Dan Murray is a singer-songwriter and spoken word poet hailing from Burlington, Ontario.

He has released one book of poetry entitled "More Human than You, Man" and is currently working on his first album - Midnight in Nervous City.

(Album artwork by Chris Nagy. Header photograph by Sven Frenzel.)
... more

contact / help

Contact Dan Murray

Streaming and
Download help

Report this track or account

If you like Dan Murray, you may also like: