Plywood Superman

Down at the drugstore

where they sell medicine

back in the corner

stands a plywood Superman.

He never saves nobody from nothing.

He just leans against the wall

looking sad.

Me, I go climbing on my broken ladder.

Aiming for high places, but I never quite can

lay two hands on the heart of the matter.

Sometimes I feel like that plywood Superman.

Last night at the truck stop,

the cashier at the diesel desk

stopped to talk to me as I paid for my beer.

She's single with 2 kids,

says she loves Las Vegas.

Her dream's one day some rich man

will take her away from here.

When she goes climbing on her broken ladder,

she's searching for some sweet, far-off promised land.

But nobody never breaks free of nothing

wrapped in the arms of a plywood superman.

Now my old daddy, he worked in a factory,

and he used to beat on me

with his mind not his hands.

And though for ten years he's laid

in that grave in Birmingham,

to this day I still hear him saying

what a useless thing I am.

When I go climbing on my broken ladder,

I'm searching for something

but what I don't understand

is how you can climb forever

and still never reach nothing...

trapped in your life like some plywood superman.