Why Write a Letter That You'll Never Send

We don't write letters anymore

There ain't the time or place

But a friend of mine wrote something

Like a letter yesterday

It was smuggled through my inbox

Just this morning, 3:00 AM

More impotent than important

Let me read it now, verbatim

He says: I got that same old feeling

The one that turns the birds to brutes

The sky is like a bad dream

And the earth is in cahoots

I don't believe no one no more

I don't care what no one says

I just want to make the world

A much less painful place

And we look fonder on the good old days

As they drift further away

But why, if everyone feels so homesick

Are they always settin' sail?

'Cause it's all bad news up there on deck

And each headland masks the next

I'd just as soon dive in the ocean

And forgo the blood and sweat

And forgo all aspirations

They just put everyone at odds

If idle hands are the Devil's work

Then where's the time for God's?

Oh, yeah

Why write a letter that you'll never send

Away? (Why won't you)

Stay with me, wait and see

And all you need know

Nobody's perfect and their needs are always stark

(Stay with me) wait, you'll see

And all you need know

Everybody's hurting and their needs are always stark

(Stay with me) stay with me

And who cares about wars of choice and lands

Where states indulge their passions?

And all the new shoots just jackboot scoot

All dissent out of fashion

Like Fred Astaire's at a film premiere

That is all about them

It's stirring stuff, transformative

They don't care where they're sent

And they're all kiss-chasing childish dreams

Of a privileged masculinity

Till they're spent by shock and discharged home

To small town and big cities

And the rest of the type left are dying or dead

From just trying to be useful

They've been handy in the years gone by

And they'll be handy in the future

And who cares for their survival?

And who cares about the Yanks?

Who cares if they get overrun

By Chinese nukes and tanks?

And who cares about the Holocaust?

Man, we didn't learn nothing there

And all its memory does

Is keep the History Channel on air

And who cares about the Vatican?

Man, everybody knows

And who's surprised they went and chose

A Nazi for a Pope?

And who cares about fakes like anarchists?

Man, they never want to dance

Let's mambo Mogadishu

Give anarchy a chance

I'm saying life is cruel, you know it's true

But all sides still try to recruit ya

For Shangri-La's as practical

As doing a Kama Sutra

And why write a letter that you'll never send

Away? (Why won't you)

Stay with me, wait and see

And all you need know

Nobody's perfect and their needs are always stark

(Stay with me) wait, you'll see

And all you need know

Everybody's stressed the fact their needs are always stark

(Stay with me) stay with me

And who cares if the starving millions know

If it's Christmas or your birthday?

Or what movie star's in Africa or

The guy from you2 says?

Or all the statesmen never telling lies

As truth or gospel?

Who cares what's true or false?

The truth's the world won't go to hospital

But who needs to live forever?

And who needs the extra miles?

We won't need bees or seed banks

In the Arctic for a while

We play the game to start again

Not to better life for all

It's the appropriate opiate

When the better way's impossible

Some honesty now wouldn't go astray

And if not, well, what's the use?

We're animals, we can't help doing

What all animals do

So goodbye, my friend, I'm hitting send

Forgive me talking straight

I'm only trying to make the world

A much less painful place

And why write a letter that you'll never send

Away?

Away?

Away?

Away?

Away?