Grandpa Won't Be Coming Home For Your Birthday

Grandpa won't be coming home for your birthday
He's all tied up and tired from hanging around
He took wing for one last swing in the night air
and he'll be that high until the cops can bring him down

Those that live to fight
As he would say
Only earn the right to suffer another day

I tore apart a stack of his old paperbacks
For the kindling to try and keep us warm
And as the pages burned, the fire looked poetic.
Though they came second, those books were always his firstborn

I thought that someday he might say he was proud of his son
But someday is not tomorrow
Some days never come

But Grandpa didn't give us just a surname
He gave us all his genetic traditions too
Like a thirst for Gin, a taste for sin
And an appetite for sadness
He passed them on to me, and I passed them on to you

The only sign I ever had that he couldn't cope
Was the necktie that he made from a length of rope

No, Grandpa won't be coming home for your birthday
Because this time it's gone and hung himself from a tree
But I thought we'd still have your party by that old sturdy oak limb
And you could look up and say "someday that could be me"
Yeah, I thought we'd still have your party by that old sturdy oak limb
And you could look up and say "someday that could be me"

And he'll be that high until the cops can bring him down