“Youthless” is the fifth track off of Beck’s 2008 album “Modern Guilt”. The title is a lisped play on “useless”, but the meaning is reshaped into “lack of childhood”. The song is stuffed with Beck-like metaphors, and a dreary tone.
[Verse 1]
There's a bottomless pit that we've been climbing from
Just to get on level ground
Shake your seasick legs around
Dead of winter in a logo town
Signs of life are soft and flickering
Need a bed to lay my body down
Dead weight to carry down
Some static is lulling me to sleep
Hang your clothes on a chain link fence
In a junkyard say Amen
Your mouth is full of wordless hymns
And run-on sentences
[Chorus 1]
And they're helpless and forgetting
In the background holding nothing
And they're youthless and pretending
With their bare hands holding nothing
[Verse 2]
There's a million horses dragging down a monolith
With these trademarks so bereaved
Tied my leg to a barricade
With a plastic hand grenade
They tried to turn emotion into noise
Need a teleprompter for my life
Need a pipeline to the night
My body can't get no relief
And this life it goes by fast
You're treading water in the past
Trying to re-animate something that you can't understand
[Chorus 2]
And they're helpless and forgetting
In the background saying nothing
And he's youthless and forgetting
With their bare hands touching nothing
[Chorus 3]
And he's helpless and forgetting
In the background playing nothing
And he's youthless and pretending
With his bare hands holding nothing
Youthless was written by Beck.
Youthless was produced by Danger Mouse & Beck.