Will Oldham – For The Mekons Et Al lyrics

Is it time for you to settle down?
Yet your tiredness and sadness keep my spirits up
And the guns and greed that is in your heart
Is what a deputy lives for

Without you deputies exist
No voice to broadcast feelings with
Intuition, luck and fear
Confusion, age and sweat and beer

If you won they'd be the new Mekons
And you perhaps a myth bygone
No, they have something that they can see
And history is there to serve our cause

Memory, reality
Loyalty, idolatry
Money growing on a tree
Picked by aging little men

Deputies do not rely
Individual unions
Imagination, open eyes
They're the new home militia

Executive branch in a nation of one
Exercise our power
To veto, veto, veto
Be the man of the hour

Laws exist like history books
Atlantis State University
If you can forget how to ride a bike
You have had a good teacher

The words are there like a pretty picture
Hanging on the bathroom wall
At age 16, you are stealing a mirror
And find a friend beside you

Say your piece incidentally
And pick a dancing partner
And follow the steps and don't forget
You can use it again later

If we drink we still think
And we wake up in the morning
Or we stay out all night long
The righteous path is straight as an arrow