nothing but this

[[ 

Someone regrets life and contemplates running away from the current situation, but it seems like this is not the first time the singer has run away. Always between things, always nowhere, geographically and on the radio dial: white noise, static, lightning.

And it's about escaping this desert and finding the sea, but maybe just a fantasy.

]]

nighttime's a real thing

crackles like lightning 

up all the bones of my spine

how did I ever

land in this desert

with nothing left that was mine?

between radio stations

there's nothing but static and hiss 

there's nothing but nothing but this

when you're so far between

a room in an attic

listening to static

feeling the sun coming down

I'll send a letter

out of this desert

baby please let me come home    [[ or baby please come take me home ]]

I'm going down

where the rivers run down

I'm going down 

to the sea

doctor told me

[[ standard blues form, kind of an old couple blues:

In the verses, the doctor says it looks like something's wrong with the singer's heart, brain, and blood in a literal/physical sense, and then the singer's partner says they could have told you that, with more figurative implications about the singer's heart, mind, and family/ancestry.

In the bridge, the singer checks the medicine cabinet, where you look in the mirror (examine yourself) and of course keep your medicine.

In the chorus, the singer says what all those pills are for, what they do in a literal or figurative sense.

]]

verses:

doctor told me

you've got a bad bad heart

doctor told me

you've got a bad bad heart

[[woman/baby/?]] told me

baby

I could have told you that from the start

doctor told me

nothing but trouble in your blood

doctor told me

nothing but trouble in your blood

[[woman/baby/?]] told me

baby

before you were born you were no damn good

doctor told me

there's a dark spot in your brain

doctor told me

there's a dark spot in your brain

[[woman/baby/?]] told me

baby

It's like I told you again and again

bridge:

let's check the medicine cabinet

let's check the medicine cabinet

first the mirror

then look inside

chorus:

I take

a pill

to make

my heart

beat slower

a pill

to make

my blood

run colder

a pill

to bring

me back

from the dead

I take

a pill

to make

the pres-

sure lower

a pill

to make

me one

day older

a pill

to get

[[me/her/him/you]] out

of my head

tidying up

[[ This pervy fellow is obsessed with razing civilization. ]]

this place would look better

burned to the ground

I love the sound of 

a crackling fire

this place would look better

blown to the sky

Can't tell you why I 

love bricks in the air

all this place needs is

a fuse and a match

pssst goes the secret fire 

stand back and watch

maybe a time bomb

some sticks and a clock

wait for the sound while I'm 

stroking my cock

this place would look better

strewn in the street

under my feet the 

hard crunching of glass

this place would look better

all washed away

into the bay when 

I blow up the dam

oh, damn

oh, damn

all this place needs is

a fuse and a match

pssst goes the secret fire 

stand back and watch

maybe a time bomb

some sticks and a clock

wait for the sound while I'm 

stroking my cock

air brakes

I was falling 

far from home

I was falling 

through a storm

cloud by cloud

from sun to sea

leaving holes that 

looked like me

so many miles high

going down from down

I was falling

till I stopped