Beck - Modern Guilt Album Lyrics

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Orphans

(feat. Cat Power)

Think I'm stranded but I don't know where
I got this diamond that don't know how to shine
In the sun where these dark winds wail
And these children leave their rulers behind
As we cross ten leagues from a Rubicon
With matchsticks for my bones
If we could learn how to freeze ourselves alive
We could learn to leave these burdens to burn

Cast out these creatures of woe
Who shattered themselves
Fighting a fire with your bare hands

Now my journey takes me further south
I want to hear what the blind men sing
With their fossils and their gypsy bones
I'll stand beside myself so I'm not alone
And how can I new again
What rusts every time it rains?
And the rain it comes and floods our lungs
We're just orphans in a tidal wave's wake

If I wake up and see my maker coming
With all of his crimson and his iron desire
We'll drag the streets with the baggage of longing
To be loved or destroyed
From a void to a grain of sand in your hand

 

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Gamma Ray


If I could hold
Hold out for now
With these icecaps melting down
With the transistor sound
And my Chevrolet terraplane
Going around around around

Come on little gamma ray
Standing in a hurricane

Your brains are bored like a refugee from a house that's burning
And the heat wave's calling your name
She's got a cactus crown
With a dot dot dot on her brow
And she speaks inside a cloud
With her countenance turning around

It hit me like a gamma ray
Standing in a hurricane

I'm pulling out thorns
Smokestack lightning out my window
I want to know what I've lost today

Come on little gamma ray
Standing in a hurricane

Your body's bored
Like a refugee from a house that's burning
And the backwater's calling your name

 

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Chemtrails


I can't believe what we've seen outside
You and me watching the jets go by

Down by the sea
So many people
They've already drowned
You and me watching a sea full of people
Try not to drown

So many people
So many people
Where do they go?
You and me watching a sky full of chemtrails
That's where we belong

All I can take from these scars is hope
But all I can see in this night are boats sinking

Down by the sea swallowed by evil
We've already drowned
You and me watching a sea full of people
They've already drowned

So many people
So many people
Where do they go?
You and me watching a sky full of chemtrails
Watching the jet planes go by

You and me watching
You and me watching
The chemtrails is where we belong
That's where we'll be when we die in the slipstream
We'll climb in a hole in the sky

 

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Modern Guilt


I feel uptight when I walk in the city
I feel so cold when I'm at home
Feels like everything's starting to hit me
I lost my bearings ten minutes ago

Modern guilt, I'm stranded with nothing
Modern guilt, I'm under lock and key
Misapprehension
Is turning into convention
Don't know what I've done but I feel ashamed

Standing outside the glass on the sidewalk
These people talk about impossible things
And I'm falling out of the conversation
And I'm a pawn piece in a human shield

Modern guilt is all in our hands
Modern guilt won't get me to bed
Say what you will
Smoke your last cigarette
Don't know what I've done but I feel afraid

 

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Youthless


There's a bottomless pit that we've been climbing from
Just to get on level ground
Shake your seasick legs around
Dead of winter in a logo town
Signs of life are soft and flickering
Need a bed to lay my body down
Deadweight to carry down
Some static is lulling me to sleep
Hang your clothes on a chain link fence
In a junkyard say Amen
Your mouth is full of wordless hymns
And run-on sentences

And they're helpless and forgetting in the background holding nothing
And they're youthless and pretending with their bare hands holding nothing

There's a million horses dragging down a monolith
With these trademarks so bereaved
Tied my leg to a barricade
With a plastic hand grenade
They tried to turn emotion into noise
Need a teleprompter for my life
Need a pipeline to the night
My body can't get no relief
And this life it goes by fast
You're treading water in the past
Trying to re-animate something that you can't understand

And they're helpless and forgetting in the background saying nothing
And he's youthless and forgetting with his bare hands touching nothing

And he's helpless and forgetting in the background saying nothing
And he's youthless and pretending with his bare hands holding nothing

 

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Walls

(feat. Cat Power)

Some days we get a thrill in our brains
Some days it turns into malaise
You see your face in the veneer
Reflected on the surface of fear
Because you know we're better than that
But some days we're worse than you can imagine
And how am I supposed to live with that
With all these train wrecks coming at random

Hey what are you gonna do
When those walls are falling down
Falling down on you

Hey what are you gonna do
When those walls are falling down
Falling down on you

You got warheads stacked in the kitchen
You treat distraction like it's a religion
With a rattlesnake step in your rhythm
We do the best with the souls we've been given
Because you know we're nothing special to them
We're going some place they've already been
Trying to make sense of what they call wisdom
And this riff raff ain't laughing with them

Hey what are you gonna do
When those walls are falling down
Falling down on you

Hey what are you gonna do
When those walls are falling down
Falling down on you

 

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Replica


Make a perfect replica of your life
Cut the paper with exacto knife
Tape it up, tape it up
Against the howling wind
I'm so tired don't know where to begin

It's so unreal
It's all I need
This replica

I was the last to see me down on my knees
These antibodies learn to be the disease
And I learn to be what fights against me
We'll make a replica, a place we can sleep
And we could live in a hollow tree
Grow up old and bury the sea
And when this replica begins to look cheap
I'd throw it out but now it's home to me

It's so unreal
It's all I need
This replica

Build it up
Build it up
This replica
Now we build it up
Build it up
Build it up
Build it up
Build it up

 

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Soul Of A Man


Beat my bones against the wall
Staring down an empty hall
Deep down in a hollow log
Coming home like a letter bomb

Cold was the storm
That covered the night

Call a doctor, call a ghost
Put a fire into your bones
Sic a dog on all you know
Cut it loose before you go

Cold was the storm
That covered the night

What makes the soul, the soul of a man?

Beat my bones against the wall
Put a bank note on your bond
Gris Gris and a goldenrod
Down deep in a hollow log

Cold was the storm
That buried the night

What makes the soul, the soul of a man?

 

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Profanity Prayers


In a cast iron cage you couldn't help but stare like a creature
With the laws of a brothel and the fireproof bones of a preacher
And your lingo coined from the sacrament of a casino
On a government loan with a guillotine in your libido

Who's gonna answer
Profanity prayers
Who's gonna answer
These profanity prayers

Well you know how it looks when you pull all your books from the table
And you stare into space trying to discern what to say now
And you wait at the light and watch for a sign that you're breathing
Cos you can't just live on air and float to the ceiling

Who's gonna answer
Profanity prayers
Who's gonna answer
Profanity prayers

Who's gonna answer
Profanity prayers
Who's gonna answer
Profanity prayers

 

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Volcano


I've been walking on these streets so long
I don't know where they're going to lead anymore
But I think I must have seen a ghost
I don't know if it's my illusions that keep me alive

I don't know what I've seen
Was it all an illusion?
All a mirage gone bad?
I'm tired of evil
And all that it feeds
But I don't know

I've been drifting on this wave so long
I don't know if it's already crashed on the shore
And I've been riding on this train so long
I can't tell if it's you or me who's driving us into the ground

I don't know if I'm sane
But there's a ghost in my heart
Who's trying to see in the dark
I'm tired of people who only want to be pleased
But I still want to please you

And I heard of that Japanese girl
Who jumped into the volcano
Was she trying to make it back?
Back into the womb of the world?

I've been drinking all these tears so long
All I've got left is the taste of salt in my mouth

I don't know where I've been
But I know where I'm going
To that volcano
I don't want to fall in though
Just want to warm my bones
On that fire a while

 

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Vampire Voltage No.6

(Extended Version Bonus Track)

I don't know what I want but I know
All the fingers creeping under my bones
And I know that it's time to go
But it's time that's got its teeth in me
And I want you to fix your eyes
On something that could be beautiful
If you could teach me to lose my soul
It's just one percent of what I know
La la la la la

Vampire voltage in my soul
Vampire voltage rollin', rollin', rollin'

 

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Bonfire Blondes

(Extended Version Bonus Track)

I'm so weary of taking up space
Sending junk mail to the whole human race
Stole my genome from the salt of the earth
Weighed my brain for to see what it's worth
Lights out, they're throwing blondes at the bonfire
Beauty's burning but my backbone feels so cold

Little girl with the protean hands
White lightning that she got from Japan
Fingernails on the tasergun
Mannequins just melt in the sun
Say hello, they're throwing blondes at the bonfire
Plastic melts, but souls only wear away

La la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la

La la la la la la la la

Now the bonfire's burning my face
Generic rails that I like to deface
Landladies turn to pillars of salt
Like missile silos where the alpha males go
Bombs away, they're throwing blondes at the bonfire
From the ashes, all that's left is a heart of stone

La la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la

 

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Half & Half

(Extended Version Bonus Track)

Half of you doesn't belong here
Half of you feels home
Half of you needs somebody
Half of you wants to be alone

How can I know which one
I'm gonna need when I get back home

Half of you doesn't know nothing
And half knows too much
Half of you is reaching for something
The other half can't touch

How can I know which one
I'm supposed to try to love

Half of you feels like it's dying
Half that's just been born
Half of you is tearing out roses
And half is full of thorns

How can I know which one
I'm supposed to try to ignore

 

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Necessary Evil

(Extended Version Bonus Track)

Think I'm brain dead waiting the rain out
In this makeshift mountain home
With my arms crossed, my bare bones
Making the most of meager means

Necessary evil one more time
Necessary evil, starting to wonder what happens now?
What happens now?

If you're stranded out on a warpath
There's no scapegoat for to ride you home
When you're drifting over the landmines
You keep drifting 'til kingdom-come

Necessary evil, starting to wonder
Necessary evil, starting to wonder what happens now?
What happens now?
What happens now?