Waking Up Is Hard To Do

[Intro — doo-wop, yawning backups] (Yaaawn... ba-dum... yawn, ba-dum...) [Verse 1] The clock radio screams and I fumble to kill it, one more little minute — dear God, let me steal it. I'd sign over my future for five, maybe two, 'cause waking up is hard to do. [Verse 2] Don't look at me, talk to me, ask me for much, I'm a gray groaning corpse you would not want to touch — it's Dawn of the Dead, and I'm shuffling through to the one thing that saves me: hot coffee. Sweet brew. [Chorus] Oh, waking up is hard to do, (so hard) mm-hmm, hard to do — I'd hand you a kidney, a lung, maybe two, but waking up is hard to do. [Verse 3] A couple years back, they wired me for a test: turns out sixty times hourly I don't breathe my best. So now it's a mask and a hose and a pump — part Bane, part jet pilot, one wheezing sad lump. [Verse 4] But that mask fixed the second-worst thing on the list: 'cause before it, I'd sleep with a swing and a fist. Some shadow would chase me — I'd turn, and I'd fight, and wake with my knuckles rubbed raw on the nightstand each night. [Verse 5] Then I came to one evening at a yelp and a cry: I'd been pounding on Bailey. My dog. And goodbye to the story I'm gentle, I'm harmless, I'm kind — turns out I'm a monster. But only in my mind. [Verse 6] So they cleaned out my sinuses, straightened me true, and the 3 a.m. boxer's stayed down — for now, that'll do. No more chasing, no swinging, no dog in the fray... just the mask, and the hum, and the dread of the day. [Bridge] Now here's the fine print that they save for the end: when it hits a man right about my age, friend, it's the opener. The warm-up. The thing that rolls through before Parkinson's takes the stage... or its cousin, Lewy Body, the worse of the two. [Final Verse] So I lie there each dawn and I dread the alarm, half-hoping the tremor's the worst of the harm — 'cause the other guy's gone, and I loved his stuff too... and crossing my fingers is hard to do too.