Okkervil River - War Criminal Rises And Speaks Lyrics

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The heart wants to feel. 
The heart wants to hold. 
The heart takes past Subway, 
past Stop and Shop, past Beal’s, 
and calls it “coming home.” 
The heart wants a trail 
away from “alone,” 
so the heart turns a sale 
into a well-worn milestone 
towards hard-won soft furniture, 
fought-for fast food, 
defended end table that 
holds paperbacks and back U.S. News. 
The mind turns an itch 
into a bruise, 
and the hands start to twitch 
when they’re feeling ill-used. 

But you’re almost back now, 
you can see by the signs; 
from the bank you tell the temperature 
and then the time, 
and the billboard reads some headlines. 
The head wants to turn, 
to avert both its eyes, 
but the mind wants to learn 
of some truth that might be 
inside reported crimes. 

So they found a lieutenant 
who killed a village of kids. 
After finishing off the wives, 
he wiped off his knife 
and that’s what he did. 
And they’re not claiming that 
there’s any excusing it; 
that was thirty years back, 
and they just get paid for the facts 
the way they got them in. 

Now he’s rising and not denying. 
His hands are shaking, but he’s not crying. 
And he’s saying "How did I climb 
out of a life so boring into that moment? 
Please stop ignoring the heart inside, 
oh you readers at home! 
While you gasp at my bloody crimes, 
please take the time 
to make your heart my home: 
where I’m forgiven by time, 
where I’m cushioned by hope, 
where I’m numbed by long drives, 
where I’m talked off or doped. 
Does the heart wants to atone?
Oh, I believe that it’s so, 
because if I could climb back through time, 
I’d restore their lives and then give back my own: 
tens of times now its size 
on a far distant road 
in a far distant time 
where every night I’m still crying, 
entirely alone." 

But the news today always fades away as you drive by, 
until at dinnertime when you look into her eyes, 
lit by evening sun - that, as usual, comes 
from above that straight, unbroken line, 
the horizon 
- its rising is a given, 
just like your living. 

Your heart’s warm and kind. 
Your mind is your own. 
So our blood-spattered criminal 
is inscrutable; 
don’t worry, he won’t 
rise up behind your eyes 
and take wild control. 
Say he’s not of this time, 
he fell out of the hole.

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lyrics submitted on 15-05-2008