Bright Eyes – If The Brakeman Turns My Way Lyrics

When panic grips your body and your heart's a hummingbird.
Raven thoughts blacken your mind until you're breathing in reverse.
All your friends and sedatives mean well, but make it worse.
Every reassurance just magnifies the doubt.
Better find yourself a place to level out.

Got a cricket for a conscience always looks the other way.
A cocaine soul starts seeming like an empty cabaret.
Hey, where have all the dancers gone? Now the music doesn't play.
Tried to listen to the river, but you couldn't shut your mouth.
Better take a little time to level out.

I never thought of running.
My feet just led the way.

Mixed up signals.
Bullet train.
Cars are switched out in the crazy rain.
I could meet you any place.
If the brakeman turns my way.

All this automatic writing I've tried to understand,
From a psychedelic angel who was tugging on my hand.
It's an infinite coincidence, but it doesn't form a plan.
So I'm headed for New England or the Paris of the south.
Gonna find myself somewhere to level out.

Are your brothels full, oh Babylon, with merry middlemen?
Never peer out of their periscopes from those deep opium dens.
All this death must need a counterweight always someone born again.
First a mother bathes her child then the other way around.
The scales always find a way to level out.

I tired to pass for nothing,
But my dreams gave me away.

Mixed up signals.
Bullet train.
People snuffed out in the brutal rain.
I could live to any age,
If the brakeman turns my way.

It is an old world, it's hard to remember,
Like a dime store mystery.
I'm a repeat first time offender,
Who has rewritten history.

Mixed up tea leaves.
Phantom pain.
Fuzzy logic in the crazy rain.
Getting better every day.
If the brakemen turns my way.
Mixed up signals.
Bullet train.
Cars are switched out in the blinding rain.
He'll be smiling as he seals my fate,
When the brakemen turns my way.