Leaving LA

I was living on the hill
By the water tower and hiking trails
And when the big one hit, I'd have a seat
To watch masters abandon their dogs and dogs run free

Oh baby, it's time to leave
Take the van and the hearse down to New Orleans
Leave under the gaze of the billboard queens
Five-foot chicks with parted lips selling sweatshop jeans

These LA phonies and their bullshit bands
Sound like dollar signs and Amy Grant
So reads the pull quote from my last cover piece
Entitled "The Oldest Man in Folk Rock Speaks"

You can hear it all over the airwaves
The manufactured gasp of the final days
Someone should tell them 'bout the time that they don't have
To praise the glorious future and the hopeless past

A few things the songwriter needs
Arrows of love, a mask of tragedy
But if you want ecstasy or birth control
Just run the tap until the water's cold

Anything else, you can get online
A creation myth or a .45
You're going to need one or the other to survive
Where only the armed or the funny make it out alive

Mara taunts me 'neath the tree
She's like, "Oh great, that's just what we all need
Another white guy in 2017
Who takes himself so goddamn seriously"

She's not far off, the strange thing is
That's pretty much what I thought when I started this
It took me my whole life to learn to the play the G
But the role of Oedipus was a total breeze

Still, I dreamt of garnering all rave reviews
Just believably a little north of God's own truth
"He's a national treasure now and here's the proof
In the form of his major label debut"

A little less human with each release
Closing the gap between the mask and me
I swear I never do this, but is it okay?
Don't want to be that guy but it's my birthday
If everything ends with the photo then I'm on my way

I watched my old gods all collapse
Were way more violence than my cartoon past
It's like my father said before he croaked
"Son, you're killing me and that's all folks"

So why is it I'm so distraught
That what I'm selling is getting bought?
At some point you just can't control
What people use your fake name for

So I never learned to play the lead guitar
I always more preferred the speaking parts
Besides, there's always someone willing to
Fill up the spaces that I couldn't use

Nonetheless, I've been practicing my whole life
Washing dishes, playing drums, and getting by
Until I figured, if I'm here then I just might
Conceal my lack of skill here in the spotlights
Maya, the mother of illusions, a beard, and I

Two-thousand years or so since Ovid taught
Night-blooming, teenage rosebuds, dirty talk
And I'm merely a minor fascination to
Manic virginal lust and college dudes

I'm beginning to begin to see the end
Of how it all goes down between me and them
Some ten verse chorus-less diatribe
Plays as they all jump ship, "I used to like this guy
This new shit really kind of makes me want to die"

My first memory of music's from
The time at JCPenneys with my mom
The watermelon candy I was choking on
Barbara screaming, "Someone help my son!"

I relive it most times the radio's on
That "tell me lies, sweet little white lies" song
That's when I first saw the comedy won't stop for
Even little boys dying in the department store

So we leave town in total silence
New Year's Day, it's six o'clock AM
I've never seen a sunset this abandoned
Reminds me predictably of the world's end

It'll be good to get more space
God knows what all these suckers pay
I can stop drinking and you can write your script
But what we both think now is