Spectres - The Hold Steady

Projectionists and publicists, athletes and comedians

Photographers and columnists, subscribers and enthusiasts

Participants and spectators, the ragers and the clever kids

We’re all actors and actresses

I want to thank you all for having me

A special thanks to the academy

For birthing me and blessing me

With this fantastic opportunity

To let the light shine down on me

Now let us grieve for dead celebrities

We know them all from all the magazines

We photograph the carcasses, we hang them up on canvasses

We’re all actors and actresses

Maybe our anxiety

Lives in the spaces in between

Who we really are

And what we want to be

And the things that we let other people see

When all we really want

Is to be in magazines

Found dead on dirty mattresses, bleeding through the bandages

Cops are surveying the damages and sending out for sandwiches

They photographed the carcasses and hang them up on canvasses

We’re all actors and actresses

I guess we all got pretty close

I guess we all got pretty close

I guess we all got pretty close to the roles we chose to play

I guess we all got pretty close, i swear i saw him right by 7a

We see our friends six pages and right behind the president

(we're actors and we’re actresses)

The office girls are awful with their take on what went wrong with him

(we're actors and we’re actresses)

They’re covering the carcass, they’re bleeding and remembering

(we're actors and we’re actresses)

We’re all actors and actresses, we’re all actors and actresses

(we're actors and we’re actresses)