Life's for the Living (Anniversary Edition)

Well, grey clouds wrapped 'round the town like elastic

Cars stood like toys made of Taiwanese plastic

The boy laughed and danced 'round in the rain

While launderettes cleaned clothes, high heels rubbed toes

Puddles splashed huddles of bus stop crows

Dressed in their suits and their boots, well, they all look the same

I took myself down to the café to find all

The boys lost in books and crackling vinyl

And carved out a poem above the urinal that read

"Don't you cry for the lost, smile for the living

Get what you need and give what you're given

Life's for the living, so live it, or you're better off dead"

While the evening pulled the moon out of its packet

Stars shone like buttons on an old man's jacket

We needed a nail, but we tacked it 'til it fell off the wall

Yeah, while pigeons pecked drains, sparks flew like planes

The rain showed the rainbows in the oil stains

And we all had new iPhones, but no one had no one to call

I stumbled down to the stomach of the town

Where the widow takes memories to slowly drown

With a hand to the sky and a mist in her eye, she said

"Don't you cry for the lost, smile for the living

Get what you need and give what you're given

Yeah, life's for the living, so live it, or you're better off dead"

Or you're better off dead

Well, I'm sick of this town, this blind man's forage

They take your dreams down and they stick them in storage

You'll have 'em back, son, when you've paid off your mortgage and loans

Ah, hell with this place, I'll go it my own way

I'll stick out my thumb and I trudge down the highway

Someday, someone must be going my way home

'Til then I'll make my bed from a disused car

With a mattress of leaves and a blanket of stars

And I'll stitch the words into my heart with a needle and thread

Don't you cry for the lost, smile for the living

Get what you need and give what you're given

Yeah, life's for the living, so live it, or you're better off dead

So don't cry for the lost, smile for the living

Get what you need and give what you're given

Life's for the living, so live it, or you're better off dead

Don't you cry for the lost, smile for the living

Get what you need and give what you're given

Life's for the living, so live it, or you're better off dead