[Hook: smug gravel male lead, the crowd shouts "glass eyes!"] You only love a song when it's dead on the wall (glass eyes!) Stuffed it and mounted it, screwed it on oak in the hall Mine got a pulse, mine got legs, mine is loose in your room Glass eyes (glass eyes!). You can't love shit till it's in a tomb [Verse 1: smug, slow bounce] Walked in your den, and it's heads on the wall, every one with a little brass plate "Captured live in seventy-four." Bro, that's a trophy. That ain't taste You don't want music, Professor. You want a pelt. You want the thing to stay Sawdust where the heart was, and you call it "authentic," and you sniff when you say it Glass where the eyes were, and you love it 'cause glass don't look back when you play it Reply guy in a huntin' vest, typin' "music died" from a recliner Lodge full of purists comparin' antlers, readin' each other the liner You'd mount the sunrise if it held still. You'd stuff a heartbeat if it'd sit You don't love it 'cause it's good. You love it 'cause it's done. 'Cause it fuckin' quit [Hook] You only love a song when it's dead on the wall (glass eyes!) Stuffed it and mounted it, screwed it on oak in the hall Mine got a pulse, mine got legs, mine is loose in your room Glass eyes (glass eyes!). You can't love shit till it's in a tomb [Verse 2: nastier, the piano pounds] [Flow switch: triple-time, readin' you your own recipe] Skin it and salt it and tan it and stretch it and sew it, then glass on a board Pose it in "classic," a snarl that it never once made when it lived, and you call that "restored" Go 'head. Chase it. It's faster than you, and it's got the whole room on its side Every kid in the club with a pulse runnin' with it, and you wheezin' alone in your hide [Beat Switch: drums drop to the piano alone and a quiet room, then the swung drums slam back] Snuck it on in your lodge while you slept, to see what your trophies would do Piano rolled, kick dropped, and somethin' up on the oak went "ooh" Every head on your wall started noddin', every glass eye wet, every jaw on the snare Even your dead know a heartbeat, Professor. Ask 'em yourself. They're right there [Verse 3: double-time, cocky] Here's the part that'll kill you. Give it forty years, and you'll mount this one too Brass plate, "Classic," sawdust in the chest, and you'll swear on your life that you knew You'll tell the kids, "I was there from the start," while you dust off the glass on its face And some new thing'll come runnin' through the woods, and you'll reach for the knife at your waist [Final Hook: the crowd louder] You only love a song when it's dead on the wall (glass eyes!) Stuffed it and mounted it, screwed it on oak in the hall Mine got a pulse, mine got legs, mine is loose in your room Glass eyes (glass eyes!). You can't love shit till it's in a tomb [Outro: one piano chord, a trophy hits the floor, dead stop] [End]
