Sun Kil Moon - William McGirt lyrics

William McGirt william McGirt
William McGirt william McGirt

Caroline and I walked into town in back today
On the way I asked her how she’d feel
About a road trip to Nevada City
It’d been years since I had been there
I thought I might provoke
A negative reaction
She does all the driving and
We’ve been taking a
Lot of trips to Walmart and places like that
But she was up for it
Being around the house on a
Spring day is nice
But it’s more or less been
The same routine every day
Gardening, cooking, weeding, watching movies
Which is wonderful
Especially to share the time with
Somebody that you lovе


But it’s nice to get away once in a whilе
After 28 years of touring
Having the year of 2020 off
Has found me restless
I’m used to crossing the country a
Few times a year and
Crossing the ocean sometimes 3 or
4 times a year i’ve made peace with this
Unexpected time off, i’m very much not alone
But, I gotta admit, my breathing
Has been off since mid-March
I get a little bit panicky at night
Some people have said, "Put
Your music on Bandcamp
You’re gonna be okay"
I know that I’ll be okay
But, I feel like a shark
That’s been swimming through
The ocean for 28 years that’s been yanked out
Thrown onto the shore and told
"Don’t worry, you’ll be good
Just flip around in the sand for a while
Then we’ll throw you back in the ocean in a
Couple years and you’ll be
Swimming around again, good as new"

Some others said
"There’s a lot of streaming
Going on right now"
Streaming when I think of the word
‘streaming’, I think of exactly that
Streams those thin-flowing
Overlooked trails of water that dry
Up in the summer
Those things you see underneath footbridges
That you look down at for a
Second and see mosquitoes swarming
And maybe a few rusty beer cans
Laying next to some mossy rocks
A few minnows swimming around
You can tell your girlfriend is thinking
"Why are you looking at this stream?"
And then you keep walking

The reason I always stop to look
At streams is because I
Used to go to one as a kid to catch crayfish
I got nice memories of those times
The way you crayfish is by
Putting a paper cup
Just behind the crayfish with your left hand
And stick your index finger from your right
Hand just in front of it
You’d think the crayfish would
Nip at your finger
But it actually jumps backwards
Into the paper cup
And that’s how you’d scoop them
Up out of the stream
I’d bring them back to my house and put
Them in an aquarium full of water
And one day my mom got really
Mad at me because a few
Of them had gotten out and died
And made the basement stink
My mom made me go back to the stream
And let the rest of them go

Later in life I was looking for real estate
And the real estate agent told me
"Never buy a house that’s near a stream"
I said, "What’s wrong with streams?"
She said, "They attract rats"
So yeah, Bandcamp makes me think of camping
Which is a fun thing to do
Until I could afford hotels
And streaming now makes me think of
Because of that real estate agent, rats
But all this is gonna have to
Do for the time being

Oh my God I want to sing to a crowd
To fist bump everyone in the front row
To hear myself holding a long falsetto note
Reverberating around the room and
Putting everybody into
A spell, to hear their applause
To hear them laugh at my jokes
To share my words with that
Little demographic of the world whom I love
And I know that they love me back
When the stars align
I know that the purpose on the Earth
Is right there in that time
I was recently asked to sing I
Left My Heart in San Francisco
For something Will O’Brien related
And I said no because I didn’t leave my
Heart in San Francisco
I left my heart all over the fuckin’ place

Going back and forth between
San Francisco and
A mountain town has been wearing thin
Yeah, I love working in the garden and
Taking walks and seeing the roses and
The redwood trees and the
Blue morning glories
That are short-lived in the spring
My God my soul needs something more
Out here in the
Mountains I need destinations besides
Graveyards and Home Depot
The one place in town that
Makes decent iced tea
And in San Francisco I need a little
More than walks along the cement
And watching young people whizzing by on
Their bikes in their jogging clothes
Making me feel like a stalling car about to
Break down on the side of a road
And some of my favorite places are
Boarded up with plywood, goddamn, pancho’s
On Polk Street is closed, it’s empty
That was Nathan’s favorite place
He ate there two times a day
And American Cleaners is closed
Jenny did my dry-cleaning for
32 years, saying goodbye to her hurt so much
What a blow to my stomach
Walking away from the corner of Washington
High, it hurt so much, saying goodbye to her
So we got on the 49

And headed to Nevada City, i’ve been on that
Road so many times but I was
Really opening my eyes this time
Looking for a story i saw a sign that
Said something about equestrian
And asked Caroline, "What
Does equestrian mean?"
She said it had something to do with horses
There were beautiful yellow forsythias along
The winding road and
I saw a lot of the usual sights: cows
Turkeys and canadian geese
And signs for Coleman, Marshall
Lone Star Road
And of course the American River
Was flowing to the East
There were the usual signs for
River access but most of
Them had roadblocks so nobody
Could park their cars
We stopped in Auburn and the place we
Liked to eat there was closed
We went to get iced tea and
They made me use my card
My cash is no good in San Francisco, and
Even in downtown Auburn, to my cash
They said no by the time we got to
Grass Valley we were hungry
So we parked the car downtown and
I pointed out the Holbrooke hotel
Like many hotels now it was under renovation
I told Caroline how it was
At that hotel where I
Finished unfinished songs for the Sun
Kil Moon album April
And how I spent at least a week held up there
She asked me, "Where did
You eat around here?"
And I told her I couldn’t remember
I told her I was so busy trying
To finish unfinished songs that I didn’t
Have much of a memory of what
Else I did in Grass Valley
Besides sit in the bed, and over third
And fourth verses of six-month-old songs
I was agonizing

And so we found this restaurant that had the
Word ‘conscious’ in it to order take-out
There wasn’t much else open
On the menu, they had the word
‘hummus’ up there three times
So I told the kid behind the counter I’d
Like a plate of hummus with pita bread
He said, "Well, the hummus comes in a bowl
You can have a choice of
Beef, chicken, chickpeas" or some other shit
I don’t remember what it was
"on top of the hummus"
I said, "I’ll pay whatever
But, I don’t want the
Hummus covered in anything"
He said, "But it comes in a bowl"
I said, "Look, I’ll pay whatever, but
Man, I just want the hummus
I like my hummus to just be hummus"
He looked really confused
The competent person behind him, the
Only other person working there
Clearly looked like she knew what was
Going on in the place
But he was too busy being
Confused to ask her anything
Caroline made the mistake of telling him
"I’ll have the exact same
Thing that he’s having"
The guy started pecking away at the
Digital cash register for several minutes
His index finger was pecking all over
The place like a little kid
Sitting down at the piano for the
First time in their life
I gave Caroline 50 dollars and said
"I’ll be outside when this thing is over
And what’s with fucking bowls? When did
The world decide it was
A good marketing plan to put
Everything in a fucking bowl?
When I was a kid
The only thing you put in a bowl
Was cereal what happened to hummus plates?"
She said, "Relax, I know
I’ll meet you outside"

So I go sit down on a bench
And she brings me the food
And both bowls of hummus are
Covered in greasy fucking chicken
I said, "Goddamnit, that dumb motherfucker
There were only 2 people working in there
Why didn’t he talk to the smart looking
One when he was doing the cooking?
The only thing that kid was conscious
Of was the fucking cash register!
Why do you have to push that many
Fucking buttons for hummus and pita bread?
What’s this world coming to when a kid can’t
Trust a human being over
A machine? Goddamnit!" so I’m eating
I’m pushing the chicken out of
The way with my
Plastic fork and hummus is spilling all
Over my shirt and pants, i said
"Goddamnit! I’m so tired of
Eating on benches outside
And spilling food all over
My goddamn shirts!"
From there we went to Nevada City

When we got to Nevada City
We drove along Broad
Street and I pointed at the National Hotel
The hotel where I once spent
A night under some thin
Blankets on a cold winter night
Was also under renovation
We drove around the town and I showed her a
House I thought about buying at one time
The tiniest house in the east
Side of Broad, near downtown
But it had renters living in it
If I bought it
I’d have to pay off the renters to move out
And I wouldn’t feel right about
Doing something like that
I didn’t want to get on the wrong
Foot in a town that has
A bunch of guys that look like
Charles Manson living in it
When I say Charles Manson, I don’t
Mean it in a derogatory way
I just mean that seems to be
The look that they’re going for

That’s right, like the other times
I visited Nevada City
Every guy I saw looked like Charles Manson
Every girl looked like they’d put a spell on
You if you broke up with them
All the houses in the
Downtown area looked like
They were built in the mid-to late 1800s
Kept up nicely on this spring day
All the trees were in full bloom with an
Array of mostly pink and white flowers
I’ve been to a lot of places
Nevada City is one of the most
Charming little towns I’ve ever seen
It was nice to imagine the town during the
Gold rush before pickup trucks were invented
Before it became one of the most
Progressive mountain towns in the Sierras
I saw a payphone in front of a
Market, took a few photos and said
"Everything in this town is closed
And hardly anybody is out
Let’s get out of here" She said, "Okay, yeah
I’m tired"

Just after we left town we saw a
Sign for a campground and said
"Let’s pull in there"
Now that I’ve signed up to Bandcamp I want
To see what a campground looks like again
I’ve not been to a
Campground since the 1990s
And I remember they’d have
Payphones with the restrooms
The restrooms were always made of
These huge concrete bricks
We pulled in and all of the entrances
Were gated up but the exit wasn’t
I could see a concrete restroom that might
Have had a payphone beside it
If I could just get a better look
Caroline parked in the parking lot
We got out of the car and we
Were walking towards the exit to enter
When a car came out of the
Campground at full speed and
Stopped us as we were about
To enter through the exit
The driver asked, "Can I help you?"
I said, "yeah, we’re looking for a payphone"
She said, "Try the gas
Station across the way, over there"
I said, "Okay"

We got in the car and Caroline said
"That woman was mean"
I said, "Nah, she’s just doing her job
They probably hired her to patrol
The place so the
Manson family looking people don’t
Take over the campground" she said, "No
I don’t think that’s it i
Think they’re doing some
Kind of secret experiments back
There or something"
I asked what kind of experiments she
Was talking about, she said
"I don’t know secret experiments
On animals or something"

On our way back we pulled
Into a gas station somewhere
There was an old man standing
There with a big smile
Eyes as big as Paul Newman’s
He was sunburnt and dry as
An old desert lizard
I got out of the passenger seat and
Asked him what town we were in
He said, "Auburn" i said
"Auburn? I don’t know this part of Auburn"
I asked him where he lived and
He said in a ragged dehydrated
Voice like Papillon by the time
He got to Devil’s Island
"Oh, I’m homeless, but I live here, yeah"
I asked him how he was doing and he said
"I don’t know i don’t know what’s going
On i don’t know what’s happening
I don’t know where my right side
Is i think I just
Woke up i don’t know where my right side is"
He was standing upright but he
Did seem off balance somehow
He was kind of falling forward
I said, "yeah
The world’s turned upside down right now
And things are really fucked up" he said
"I don’t know about that all I know is that
My hands are dirty and my arms are dirty

And then he said the same thing again, "My
Hands and arms are so dry and dirty
And I’m thirsty" i said, "You’re what?"
He said, "I’m thirsty"
I said, "What do you want to drink?"
He said, "Oh, anything a soda, some water
Anything" i got two bottles of water and
Gave him the blue one
My God, that guy had the bluest eyes
A Cool Hand Luke blue
Before I left, I asked him what his name is
He said, "William william McGirt"

Caroline and I left and she
Asked what the guy said
I told her and then I asked her
"What do you think happens to
A guy like that? I mean
How is a guy who looks like Steve
McQueen and has a movie-star name like
William McGirt end up standing at the side
Of a gas station like that?" caroline said
"It could be anything mental illness maybe"
I told her that he could have asked me to
Buy him anything and I would’ve bought it
But all he said was a soda or some water
He didn’t ask for a bottle of
Whiskey or a case of beer
That guy was interesting
We drove along the 49 past
All the forsythias again
And now the American River was to our west
I said to Caroline, "I’m so stuffed from all
That thick pita bread
I think I’m gonna skip dinner tonight"
She said, "yeah, I’ll probably
Snack on something
I don’t feel like cooking tonight"
Just as we were passing Coloma, she said
"What is it about this land that caused a
Bunch of gold to be under it?"

I looked to my right and
Gazed out the window for
About twenty seconds looking at a
Market, a gas station
And some little mini mall and some trees
Then looked straight ahead and said
"I don’t know"

William McGirt william McGirt
William McGirt william McGirt