A Hand To Take Hold Of The Scene - Okkervil River

I’m a band in a show about a man holding hands with his wife

On a therapist’s couch, with his face to the ground after fucking around

countless nights

And there’s this one episode, close-up cameras are showing him crying

His red head and his red eyes

I’m a band in a show about a boy being buried alive

From his head to his toes, by a criminal, but with a sensitive soul,

with a set of raccoon eyes

And there’s this scene in the show when a hustler knows he’s going to die

The ground opens and he climbs inside

And as he speaks his last line, a thought falls from his mind, and I pick it up

right through the TV

Oh, oh

Is there a hand to take hold of the scene?

I’m a man in a dream and there, dancing in front of my eyes

Is a queen formed out of flaws, with her eyes all gone odd and a rod bolted

into her spine

She rises up like a yawn, grips my heart like a claw, splits apart like a jaw,

like an eye

And she asks me with a sigh

«When we’re so far from right, when we’re losing the fight, when we are letting

the light weaken its beam

Oh, oh

Is there a hand to take hold of the scene?»

I want a smile like a glistening shard

I want a kiss that’s as sharp as a knife

The day expires

And the dry, cracked, trembling lips

God saw fit to put this kiss inside

I lift them up to you

I’d like to bear witness to

A light that is fine and is filling the crying-est eyes

Grace in each face that is making the wasted-est, broken-est ones fairly fly

Love that is innocent of that old cynical, covetous, cancerous vibe

And a beauty that annihilates all life

Like it’s lived in these nights, holding your hatred tight like a sign that

you’re right or you’re strong

When your doors are shut tight, I will dream you tonight and my dream will just

sweep you along

When all fires are fanned, when we’re shucking our plans, when we’re too weak

to stand on our two feet

Oh, oh

Is there a hand to take hold of the scene?