"Every Single Storied Flameout" lyrics - DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS

No matter how many pens a poet drains
How full of shit he is or ain't
Well it ain't up to him to tell ya
So if burnin' out sounds better
And leaving handsome corpses makes good sense
Well, then by all means crown the lizard

Every single-storied flameout's purgatory playlist skirts the pay-outs
Anyone of his loins might collect
His is a legacy of tourist traps
Conspiracies that took him out
And tattoos someone else lives to regret

All those well-intentioned lies that I myself romanticized
Believably enough to pass as love songs
With more than one man on one knee
It never stops amazing me
How easily the heart hears what it wants to

Said the man who pissed the river
If it's on and up you're after
There's no mystery how the dam inside you burst
I'd have a lot of nerve to go feigning shock and outrage
If I'd lived my example, I'd be worse

That part of you that feels alive is wired and can't be severed
From the damage-seeking part of you that runs it
Just don't embrace it with a vengeance before you've even shaved
With a razor that you bought with your own money

Said the man who pissed the river
If it's on and up you're after
There's no mystery how the dam inside you burst
I'd have a lot of nerve to go feigning shock and outrage
If I'd lived my example, I'd be worse

Every single-storied flameout's purgatory playlist skirts the pay-outs
Anyone of his loins might collect
His is a legacy of tourist traps
Conspiracies that took him out
And tattoos someone else lives to regret