Shane Koyczan, The Short Story Long - Shut Up and Say Something lyrics

The night you were conceived your
Mum and dad had sex
I’m not telling you something
You don’t already know
I’m not telling you that butterflies
Taste with their feet
It’s fact like during World War I I
When days apart
Two German bombs were dropped on
The British Museum the second
One passed through the hole made
By the first one
But neither bomb exploded just like
That magical night with
Your mum and your dad
It’s weird and freakish, but it happened

We don’t like to think of our
Parents having sex it reminds
Me of the peanut-butter and butter
Sandwiches my grandma used


To make it’s gross but over
The period of nine months
Cells divided and grew into
Something beautiful for all
Intents and purposes you were alone
In the womb you may
Have shared the space with a
Brother or a sister
But there was no one there to tell you
"this is
Going to hurt" And it did, and it does
But it will always be a
Fond memory for your parents

See, I’ve known men who chew
On tinfoil they’re put
Together like machinery, encased in
A skin of granite
Then chiselled by hard times into a
Callous but all of them will tell you
Every mechanical part of them breaks down the
First moment they see their little
Son or daughter to quote every man I’ve
Ever known who’s had a child
"it changes you"

And that makes me sad, knowing that
I will never know this change
Having discovered at an early age I can
Never have children i still work in
Terms of "awesome time", which is awesome
But my junk is actually junk and
It forces me to think of my
Life in a very final way
That I will not continue after I’m gone so if
I should die today
Tell the world the things I could never
Say as if by saying them now
I’ve somehow said them time and time
Again as if yesterday was when
I could say something to today that way the
World could hear me as loud and
As clear as the year the world discovered
I was so far before my time
That my time left me behind
To remind time that I’m
Here today to say that maybe
This time is mine

Me and failure? We only ever speak sign
Language we have a limited vocabulary
Which means we disagree constantly and this
Is not to say I’ve
Never known failure i’ve taken her
On double dates with
Embarrassment and humility during dinner we
Sit silently watching candles melt
Into sculptures of all the
Things we’ve never said
But always felt i’ve got a black belt in
The martial arts discipline of
Emotionally retarded but
I’ve seen people open the lid
On a can of worms
That they use to bait a hook and
Go fishing for sympathy so I
Know I’m not alone in this i’m
Not the only one with problems
And my problems are not unique

So, every time in the moment before I’m about
To speak I remind myself to shut up
And say something to bring myself to each
Conversation armed with mountains
Carved into pebbles
And the true story of how and why I
Did it let people know that if
My socks smell like shit it’s because I’ve
Been kicking ass all day i
Play two-player conversations with
Total strangers for no other reason than to
Make them less strange we exchange
Stories like trading cards
And are fine with the fact that we’ve always
Been rookies
And we’ve never gone pro and I’m
Fine with the fact that I
Still don’t know what I want to be
When I grow up but today
I want to be amazing
Tomorrow, I want to bring you a piece
Of paper with the telephone number
Of a taxi cab company that knows
The exact address of my arms, so
The day you need a hug I’m going
To be there for that hear
What you have to say without waiting
For my turn to speak
Let you fall asleep for no other
Reason than to remind you it’s good to be
Tired it only means you’re practicing for
Another dream and we’ve got to practice this
Is the reason snooze-buttons
Were invented the
Reason we wake up and say "five more
Minutes" a dream is a rehab center
For insomniacs i take naps because my parents
Told me "you can be anything
Just follow your dreams

So, I practice, knowing full well this will
Never make me perfect
On a long enough timeline
Everyone fails success
Is not immortal there are times
We bury it like
A bone in the backyard, digging deep down
But along the way find that
Our fingers feature familiar
Facets that’s found in the
Search parties we sent
Out seeking someplace suitable for it
To rest the last
Words of success were, and will always be
"the least we can do is everything"

So, do it all
As if life’s too short and you’re too
Tall fall in love as many
Times as it takes, so when the rest of
The world wakes up, you can say
"I got it right this time"
Today I’m living proof
That one guy who’s never been into heavy
Lifting can still raise the roof i have
Loved this life i smile because
I have tiny dreams that play hopscotch
At the corners of my
Mouth and every time I breathe they float
Every time I laugh they
Fly kites i’ve spent late nights
In hospitals watching EKG monitors
Realising my heart has a skyline and I’ve
Seen too many people who assign
Window-washers to their eyes so they can
Watch their lives clearly pass
Them by which is why I try
To mark even the most mundane
Memories into monuments that mark my times
As something more than moments

Like November 21st 1999 walked
Into a coffee shop, asked a girl out she
Said, "I’m busy till the next lunar
Eclipse" so I left laughing
Knowing that only moments before
I had just read
An article stating that the next lunar
Eclipse would be on January 21st
Of 2000 two months away
To the day coincidence? No it’s
Spooky but we did
End up going out, and I had a great time up
Until I told her that story and she said
"that’s crazy that’s the kind of
Story you tell your kids"

There was no one there to tell me, "this
Is going to hurt" and it did
And it does it was, and will always
Be, a memory that reminds me, i can never
Have kids so from time to time
I have to be one come to this world armed
With curiosity and amazement edit
The unsent letters
Of my life into a one-word statement
" yes" yes to romantic flashlight-lit dinners
When you’ve run out of
Candles to handles on pillows so
You can hold on
To your dreams to the underdog dogsled teams
Who use angry cats instead of canines
To landmines filled with confetti
To the steady hands of friends who
Live like surgeons operating on
Our broken hearts
Building pacemakers from the spare
Parts of mercy we
Spend most of our figuring out what we
Don’t want we haunt ourselves with regret
Because we almost always bet the odds
We play it safe we waste time wondering
"what if we’re
Wrong?" What if we fail, what if we lose
What then?

Well, then you’re a loser but
You’re not alone there’s a legion of
Us who have been shot
Down on a long enough timeline
Everyone fails there’s an
Entire universe made up of the
Unsent secret crush emails
A hollow sky filled
With the lost details of what it
Feels like to never know
Because we go about our lives
Never having tried feeling
Justified in our "what if" excuses what if he
She them
They that
It, what if it didn’t?

And I ask, "what if it did?" The kid in me
Says yes to everything, the love in me says
"shut up and say something"