Okkervil River - The War Criminal Rises and Speaks lyrics

The heart wants to feel the
Heart wants to hold
The heart takes past Subway, past
Stop and Shop, past Bealls
And calls it "coming home"
The heart wants a trail away from "alone"
So the heart turns a sale
Into a well-worn milestone

The heart wants soft furniture
Fought-for fast food
Defended end table that holds paperbacks
And back US news
The mind turns an itch into a bruise
And the hands start to twitch
And 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 it's 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 it's 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 - it's 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 a hole"