Lyrics
I just woke up and this will be day six of a six-day recording session with
Nathan
We’d been working on both of these musical collaborations
The one with Sean Yeaton and this one, with Ben and Jim
Last night I dreamed that Elliott Smith was still alive
And he had hired me to play guitar with him
With his band he was taking on tour
There was a band meeting in the hotel lobby
Elliott was quiet and the drummer, the band told us
Was gonna read us something
It was a letter that Elliott had written
And Elliott wanted us to gather round and hear it
The letter was three pages long, soggy, and covered in seaweed
The point of the letter was that Elliott didn’t want any of us
To complain about anything at all during the tour
The letter went on to say that Elliott had a son
Who was possibly going to flunk the third grade
And that this was a real problem
Something he was very stressed out about
And that if any of us had any complaints to realize that life could be worse
As none of us had any kids that going to flunk any classes
He was rubbing his eyes while his drummer read the letter
Just like Elliott did during our small Swedish tour
After the letter was read, I asked Elliott, «Hey, where you living?»
And he said, «Kakron,» like the city of Akron with a K in the front of it
He said he really missed the beach and the nice weather of Los Angeles
Just when I was about to ask where Kakron was, I woke up from the dream
It was nice to see Elliott Smith again
The sun is shining today, I’m gonna get out and walk
And enjoy it before going to the studio
Nathan and I met Caroline last night for dinner in Chinatown
He’s a good-natured person, it’s nice to have him around
Caroline asked him how it’s going with raising his kid
He said, «It's been a lot of fun but it’s really not too hard,» he said
He’s one of the few friends of mine who’s raising a kid
Who’s not complaining about how hard it is and how much sleep he’s losing
We opened up fortune cookies there at the table
Nathan’s said, «New financial resources will become available»
Caroline’s said, «It will be a good day tomorrow, try something new»
And mine said, «You will be invited to social gatherings and parties soon»
It’s a new morning now and guys are hammering and drilling outside
My god, they’ve been working on that garage for years
I saw a woman yelling at them at least a few times
OCD-level stuff, for years and years and years she’s been working those guys
No matter what, no matter what, they can’t seem to get the garage right
Okay, it’s another new morning now and I gotta get up and go
My mind is still foggy and I don’t have time write out the whole dream
But I wrote these words down quickly that were related to the dream:
«Quiet, dream, water, meditation, tape, house, Florida, beach, clothes,
James Woods»
I got out of bed this morning and now it’s another new day, isn’t it?
The kids and their mom and her mom went to the Academy of Sciences
To see the astronomy exhibit
I told them I’m gonna nap today, to go on ahead without me
I didn’t want to get in the way of what the kids love so passionately
They returned with pictures of butterflies
And catfishes as big as small, small great whites
That’s nice of them, they brought photos back for me to see
They said the photo of the black butterfly was especially for me
I was in another world while we ate our Italian food
Around the corner, there’s always an unfinished album or another tour
Got rehearsals coming up, heading to Australia and New Zealand
Afterwards, we walked together to my girlfriend’s apartment
From the restaurant on Kennedy, I was quiet
What does an uncle say?
«How was your day?», «It was okay»
I feel boring, kids don’t care about an uncle who played the Ryman
In the moment I can’t think of a lot of words that rhyme with «uncle» or «Ryman»
Other than «Garfunkel and Simon»
Got to Caroline’s apartment, they had fun playing with the cat
Cats, now there’s a thing we can all relate to
We had fun, playing with the cat