Paint by Numbers

On the playground you learned how to share with the kids

But you still didn't feel you fit in

How fitting, in confusion when you turned sixteen

You knew how to paint by numbers

But you knew it wasn't rock and roll

You learned tight pants, spray-paint and eyeliner

You said glam-rock would save your soul

But you didn't grasp that the rebellion you wanted wasn't something you can ever be sold

And I never understood how someone could be so willing to be absorbed

Into what I never though could be passed for identity

And I always felt bad for the kids who had to share their faces

With sad teenagers across the world

Found something to fill their loss, without ever adjusting the cause

I heard a speech pattern imitated exactly by a girl in Seattle and a gang in Minneapolis

So I guess he must of learned that from T.V.

You said you'd find yourself for real but feel far out from the goal

You had to paint by numbers but knew it wasn't ro-ro-ro-ro rock and roll!