Harder Harmonies

Like a shadow on a shadow, a phantom in a film strip
 Faint glimmer of the past trapped in mother's old slides
 Sits still in the apartment while sifting through some pictures
 Of the child that he once was and the sense of hope they framed
 "It's a shame"
 And I fear that fate while the humming from the street keeps me awake
 He says: "I let life get twisted
 Get worn out, torn up, and late with the rent
 And now nothing makes sense except the bench and that piano
 A feeling nearing order when I'm pressing down the chords"
 And he plays and it swells and breaks
 But what'll it take to make my life sound like that
 And brings a fever, a dream of sweat and ecstasy
 A kiss on every hammer hit that follows as the keys fall down
 And bring an order first, then chaos, then a calm
 That paints every shift in murals on the wall
 And it presses to your neck, it clutches to your hips
 Softly sings to you of fireworks and God and art and sex and it's strange
 That it feels so right when nothing else does
 ♪
 But all the while he's playing
 There's a humming coming up and through the window from outside
 And even he has to admit a certain melody in it, but then why can't he harmonize?
 It's like the city's got its own song but he can't play along
 He sees the notes as they fly by but always plays them wrong
 And in the bathroom it gets blurry, gets warm and distorted
 Like light pushed the orange of the pillbox he poured in his palm
 It falls to the floor, he smiles as it hits
 "Sounds a little like an instrument"
 Like a voice in the choir
 That hum and that drumbeat of life as an art-form
 And fire through the streets that keep moving us in silence to phantom baton sweeps
 Keep tapping to the tempo of our feet
 
 And all the ones who seem to fit the best into the chorus never notice there's a song
 And the ones who seem to hear it end up tortured by the chords when they fail to find a way to sing along
 
 And when you sing the wrong thing it all starts collapsing
 Starts to ring out and feedback, starts lapsing and crashing, on notes that don't clash
 But that never quite feel like they match
 And I never quite feel like mine match
 There's a melody in everything
 I'm trying to find a harmony
 But nothing seems to work
 Nothing seems to fit
 There's a melody in everything
 I'm trying to find a harmony
 But nothing seems to work
 Nothing seems to fit
 There's a melody in everything
 I'm trying to find the harmony
 But nothing seems to work
 Nothing fits