Those Poor Bastards – Ill At Ease lyrics

And I wake up in the city
All them cold dim lights shining down on me
The walls are concrete, I can't kick through them
The windows dirt filled, I can't see through them

I walk with eyes closed through the hallway
Stumble down the stairs to the basement
The sound of people, the sound of machines
I must escape them, get my poor soul clean

Down in the basement I find a corner
It is cobwebbed, cracked and hollow
I take my hat off, I let my hair down
Then I back up to the opposite wall
I start running, my head strikes corner
And the whole building, man, it starts to crumble
Twenty stories of city dwellings
Are now cracked rubble upon the sidewalk

All that graffiti, all of them children
Forever safe now from becoming orphans
And me I'm safe too, I'm in a tunnel
Hidden down here beneath the city
Now look there on the floor, an old white pony
With a map tied to its ankle
The map has only one black arrow
That says, "nowhere" in its center

Ill at ease
Ill at ease

Ain't it grand?
The tunnel leads to a forest
So, so grand
Thousand year old trees
Yet this magnificence
Leaves me feeling impotent and insignificant

Everything fits but me
Crow, deer carcass
Loose branches, still water, and me?
Human!
So ugly with combed hair and tight fitting clothes

Whisper whisper to the dead carp
Lying bloated on the red shore
Face all caved in from my wood bat
Fins all torn off by my fingernails
It is lunch time
Fuckin' fish meat
Gathered berries stain my fingers
So this is real life
Not just dress up
Unprotected by my neighbors
And when the night falls I see real stars
Not just stickers on my ceiling
Lord it is grotesque
Lord it's absurd
To keep speaking these cold, cold city words

I need a new language full of trouble
Full of danger and uncertainty
Grunts and growls, moans and howls
Something awful to offend thee

But even out here I feel walled in
I feel cut off from my birth skin
This ain't primal, no this is fake too
The geese fly above in a two-sided triangle

I lift my slingshot, filled up with sharp rocks
I'm just like David
They are Goliath
And one by one boy, the birds they fall dead
I laugh silently and I stomp on their heads
Ill at ease
Ill at ease

Ain't it grand?
The tunnel leads to a forest
So, so grand
Thousand year old trees
Yet this magnificence
Leaves me feeling impotent and insignificant

Everything fits but me
Crow, deer carcass
Loose branches, still water, and me?
Human!
So ugly with combed hair and tight fitting clothes

And I wake up in the country
Pestilent sun shining down on me
I reap my bounty, one thousand acres
Yes I do own this, I justly claim it

Fuck the generations who came before me
I never needed them nor nobody
I'm like an Indian, so silent and wise
Though I know nothing and I hate silence
Ill at ease
Ill at ease