Bright Eyes - If the Brakeman Turns My Way lyrics

When panic grips your body and
Your heart's a hummingbird
Raven thoughts blacken your mind until
You're breathing in reverse
All your friends and sedatives mean
Well but make it worse
Every reassurance just magnifies the doubt
Better find yourself a place to level out

Got a cricket for a conscience
Always looks the other way
A cocaine soul starts seeming
Like an empty cabaret
Hey where have all the dancers gone
Now that music doesn't play?
Tried to listen to the river but
You couldn't shut your mouth
Better take a little time to level out

I never thought of running
My feet just led the way

Mixed up signals, bullet trains
Cars are switched out in the crazy rain
I could meet you any place
If the brakeman turns my way

All this automatic writing
I have tried to understand
From a psychedelic angel who was
Tugging on my hand
It's an infinite coincidence but it
Doesn't form a plan
So I'm headed for New England or
The Paris of the south
Gonna find myself somewhere to level out

Are your brothels full, Oh Babylon
With merry middlemen?
Never peer out of their periscopes
From those deep opium dens
All this death must need a counterweight
Always someone born again
First a mother bathes her child
Then the other way around
The scales always find a way to level out

I tried to pass for nothing
But my dreams gave me away

Mixed up signals, bullet trains
People snuffed out in the brutal rain
I could live to any age
If the brakeman turns my way

It's an old world it's hard to remember
Like a dime store mystery
I'm a repeat first time offender
Who has rewritten history

Mixed up tea leaves, phantom pain
Fuzzy logic in the crazy rain
Getting better every day
If the brakeman turns my way

Mixed up signals, bullet trains
Cars are switched out in the blinding rain
He'll be smiling as he seals my fate
When the brakeman turns my way