Creature Comforts

[Nate Mondschein] (spoken):
And so she asked me, what do you do?
But, before I can answer, she catches herself and says “sorry, what’s your job?”
As if to say I know your type: all grand scheme and illusion all wrapped up and further down the road, and paying the bills with what, exactly?
You come here, with your records, and your notebooks, and all these feelings that everyone’s just gotta hear, you’re looking like some kind of dressed down prophet, and what’s it get you?
You’re still gonna have that wordplay when the rent’s due
Still trying to push the line, some kinda two-bit archer with a cardboard target, what are you actually doing for yourself
And it isn’t that she’s wrong
That I don’t cold-sweat myself into and out of 12 decisions a day whether to write the story I have been dying to tell or the one that’s going to be the easiest to sell off
I probably spent more of my life back-and-forthing myself into a corner than working for anything
And she probably knows
Probably caught the way that I was waiting for the second part of that question
Probably thinks she’s got me now
Kept in a pile of toying rubble, and I guess at a certain point that becomes the call you got made
Is what you do what you love or just the easiest way to avoid a decision when it comes to it, when the wallet’s thin and all you’ve got to make it back is a notepad, are you still gonna want this
And she probably thinks I won’t
It’s got her smiling now, like, like this love isn’t something to hang your hat on, it’s just a place you go when everything else gets too loud to take, and it isn’t that its not
I just like to think someday I could live in the same place where I lay my head
I’d like to think that’s something I would fight for
You show me a cubicle and an open chequebook and I could turn it down, and I know the unreasonable privilege it is to even have that choice
The luxury of something to walk away from and regret 10 years down the road, and if I do, 35 finds me buried under a desk burning every illusion I used to believe in to ash, and I will call to let her know
But if not, then I’ll find her, I will take her hand, walk her through all the rubble and let down and broken design and I will bring her to the edge of everything we have been building, and I’ll invite her inside

[Garth Taylor] (sung):
I get sick of working, ay, is it even worth it
I’m tired and I’m hurting
Oh I’m so used to learning