Song About a Star - Okkervil River

He cut your strings so that he could float — lit by lights, lifted by alcohol

Over acres of loving coast, far away from your lonely ghost

Now he’s cool and all, floating anchorless.

Ports of call

Where it’s fabulous, after all of this watching himself just crawl

Think you see him?

He’s not there, that’s just light that’s not yet dead

Wait two hours and watch what’ll be there instead

Was he small and cold, like a ring you call up from home

Held so tightly his limbs went numb, worn away between your finger and thumb?

Well, now he’s bought and sold.

Cry his call number down the phone

He can’t hear you — he’s on his float, waving down to the folks at home

As the cameras love all of his faces

They hide all the traces of you in his heart

Stand in line to hold forth on his grace

But you won’t even get a head-start

Get a head-start

As his close-up comes cascading down from above

The eyes of a nation in love are looking on all of their hopes held up

And the words that some screenwriter counted and chose

And then set in their sequence and froze

Unfreeze on his tongue as he speaks for all of us

But one.

And honey, he’s gone

And baby, he’s everyone’s.

In the dark sky tonight

Cast your eyes on the dim light

That he will become.

You’re like everyone

Who thinks they see him

He’s not there, that’s just light that’s not yet dead

Wait two hours

And watch what’ll be there instead