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