Waste of Paint - Companion Version

I have a friend, he's mostly made of pain
He wakes up, drives to work and straight back home again
He once cut one of my nightmares out of paper
I thought it was so beautiful, I put it on a record cover

And I tried to tell him he had a sense
Of color and composition, so magnificent

And he said, "Thank you, please
But your flattering is truly not becoming me
Your eyes are poor, you're blind to see
No beauty call have come from me

I'm a waste of breath, of space, of time"

A new woman, she was dignified and true
Her love for a man was one of many virtues
Until one day she found out that he had lied
She decided the rest of her life from that point on would be a lie

But she was grateful for everything that had happened
She was anxious for what would come next

But then she wept, #What would you expect
In that big old house with the cars they kept"
And, "Such is life," she often said
"With one day leading to the next
You get a little closer to your death"

Which was fine with her, she never got upset
With all the days she may have left
She would never clean another mess
Or fold his shirts or look her best

She was free to waste away alone

Last time my brother, he got drunk and drove
And this cop, he pulled him up to the side of the road
He said, "Officer, officer, you got the wrong man
No, I am a student of medicine and a son of a banker, you don't understand"

The cop said, "No one got hurt, you should be thankful
And your carelessness, it is something awful"

And no I can't, just let you go
And though your brother's name is known
Your decisions now, they're yours alone
You're nothing but a stepping stone

On a path to debt, to loss, and to shame"

The last few months I've been living with this couple
Yeah, you know the kind who buy everything in doubles
They fit together like a puzzle
I love their love and I'm thankful

That someone actually receives the prize that was promised
By all those fairy tales that drugged us

And that still you mean, I'm sick, lonely
No laurel tree, just green envy
Will my number come up eventually
Like love's some kind of lottery?
Where you scratch and see what's underneath

It's sorry, just one cherry
I'll play again, I'll get lucky

So now I hang out down by the train's depot
No, I don't ride, I sit and watch the people there
They remind me of windup cars in motion
The way they spin in turn and jockey for positions

And I wanna scream out, it's all nonsense
Your life's one track, can't they see it's pointless?

But just then my knees give under me
My head feels weak and suddenly
It's clear to see it's not them but me
Who's lost my self-identity
And I hide behind these books I read
While scribbling my poetry

Like art could save a wretch like me
With some ideal ideology
That no one could hope to achieve
I'm never real, it's just a sketch of me
And everything I've made is trite and cheap

And a waste of paint, of tape, of time

So I park my car down by the cathedral
Where the floodlights point up at the steeples
Practice is filling up with people
I hear the sound escaping as an echo
Sloping off the ceiling at an angle
When the voices blend they sound like angels
I hope there's some room still in the middle

But when I lift my voice up now to reach them
The range is too high way up in heaven

So I hold my tongue, forget the song
Tie my shoes, start walking off
Try to just keep moving on
With my broken heart and my absent God
And I have no faith but it's all I want

To be loved, and believe in my soul
In my soul