A crucial filament is all but spent;
Soon it will be dark in my basement.
My heart is waxing the slick floor again,
Hoping I will slip and fall in love.
Well she gave me the choice
To remain and rejoice,
Or to recoil and rebel.
Well papa, this gravity attack,
Yeah, its a gravity attack,
And I can't seem to carry, much less bury the past.

Well your ex-girlfriend said I was a terrible mess,
Yeah, she's got a real good head on her shoulders.
When the singer spoke and confessed
She didnt really smoke cigarettes,
She said her teenage brother smoldered...
On a hot bed of coal in a sterile white room
Underneath that Joy Division poster... .
He moaned papa--
He moaned papa,
Somtimes I gotta vent my spleen!
Sometmes I gotta vent my spleen--
When I get shattered in the heart
And scattered in the brain.

Well all those medicines in those sermons
Still can't keep his brazen nose from turning.
And salvation it may come free of charge,
But faith alway costs him something.
They say there is nothing as sacred
As the blood between brothers,
When its pricked from there thumbs
And exchanged beneath the covers.
Well papa, my brother is gone!
Yeah, my brother is gone,
So would you tell now how it is,
That I'm supposed to get along.

Well, you asked for a chorus but you got a refrain.
Yeah, its another sad song that moves like a train.
You can't wistle to it but you can fast forward through it,
Flick it off your shoulder like dead skin.
They say my head on a plate
May curve the debate
Over the unbearable high cost of living.
But papa, everything falls apart!
Everything falls apart!
And the grass will grow
As surely as they will break your heart.