The Mark Kozelek Museum

Lyrics

I remember a girl from Tallahassee
 And she was 21 and beautiful and sweet
 And she took me to Jim Morrison's old house near Florida State University
 Where we went into the dark, dank basement
 There's an old chandelier covered in dust and rust
 It was not then but later that we'd finally touch
 Best to leave, I'm reaching for crystal's picture untouched
 So yeah, we each pulled a crystal from the chandelier
 And we both said we'd save them for the rest of our lives as a souvenir
 To remember our moment, our mutual love for the Doors
 I'll need a home for that crystal in a hundred years
 It's somewhere in my half-century's worth of sentimentals
 I must find it and take stock of my guitars and their serial numbers
 And organize my boxes of my Christmas cards and photos
 I've got trunks' worth that will eventually have to go
 To the Mark Kozelek Musuem
 It's to the Mark Kozelek Museum
 I just need to find the right location
 Cause home for me has been many places
 It's been station to station
 Street to street, bed to bed, town to town
 My home is many places
 My feet cover many miles and miles of the ground
 Not sure what my museum will be
 Maybe it will be a chain all around the nation
 Your modern home is plainly aesthetic
 To when you're on the tour bus in Almost Famous
 And I dreamed I saw you one night in Boise, Idaho
 You were a very different girl than the girl I used to know
 There's was a darkness that had fallen upon you
 A nervous twitch, and your breasts were so much bigger
 Your back was covered with tattoos
 You were not 21 anymore, you had lived a hard life
 In your eyes, it showed
 Your lipstick was thick, your remarks to me had a wicked sting
 As if some Las Vegas pinker had taken you under his wing
 I didn't ask what else you did for a living
 But my heart was broken thinking of all the possibilities
 What was the turning point?
 What was it that could have happened to your warm, loving hug?
 And I thought back to your young, 21-year-old fingers
 And you said, "Oh my god, I just fucked my favorite lead singer"
 And that innocent memory of you and I still lingers
 In my dream, something had possessed you
 Your soul was so hard
 "It is your right to passage," I said to you in the dream
 "It is your right to passage," I said to you
 Finished the book The Boat to Los Angeles
 Just as my flight landed in SFO from Los Angeles
 Reminded me when I was living in Ohio in my teens
 Working humiliating jobs that I knew were beneath me
 When no one in the neighborhood much believed in me
 "Sure you're gonna make it, Mark, sure you're gonna sing for a living"
 "Sure you're gonna make it doing the California musician thing"
 "Sure you're gonna make it playing guitar, Mark, sure thing"
 Work up to the smell of smoke from the Sonoma fires
 Gotta get up there and play a benefit and raise some money and inspire
 Saw Ariel Pink last night, I said, "How you doing, my brother?"
 His voice sounded shy, he said, "I'll be on another planet"
 I could feel tension backstage, there was something going on in his eyes
 He's my brother in music and I told him it's gonna be okay
 Ariel Pink ain't your run-of-the-mill indie rock
 If it was 1975, he would be a household name and we'd be neck-and-neck
 He would be David Bowie famous and I'd be Neil Young famous, selling out arenas
 But that ain't the case here in 2017
 Backstage with our Crystal Geysers and Oranginas
 He's a Spotify king and his biggest song is "Another Weekend"
 And I'm on Spotify too, they tell me
 My biggest song is "Chili Lemon Peanuts"
 Next time I see him, will probably be some indie rock festival in Europe
 At some cafeteria, port-a-potties outside that reek of diarrhea
 And while most indie rockers are onstage
 Doing the most to keep their fans snoring
 No one could accuse me or Ariel Pink of ever being boring
 Diarrhea, diarrhea, diarrhea, diarrhea
 Diarrhea, diarrhea, diarrhea, diarrhea
 I thought back to our night that always lingered
 I forgot to mention she was married
 And God's voice came to me in the night
 And said, "You will both be punished, sinners"
 I said, "I don't believe in you, God, I never did, not even maybe"
 I was a singer in a band, she was an impressionable young lady
 And God said, "I am real and you will be punished for this sin"
 And I replied, "Even if I am, it was worth it to feel the touch of her precious fingers"
 I told her God came to me in the night and said we'd burn in hell
 Before she broke her vows
 She said, "I don't believe in God or my marriage much anyhow"
 That's me on guitar, Steve Howe-style
 I'm in the seventh grade, listening to The Yes Album
 I love you, Steve Howe, you inspired me
 Like how hopefully I'll inspire others
 I got a Gibson ES-175 Sunburst just like yours, down to the very year
 Actually that's not true, it's a '66, I wish it was a '64
 One day, I hope it will be hanging in the Mark Kozelek Museum
 And maybe that crystal that I took from Jim Morrisson's chandelier
 Maybe postcards sent to my father from around the globe
 I just gotta find a spot near my home
 Or my other homes far away from home
 Maybe Sweden, cause I believe I lived there in another life
 Maybe further up northern California
 Because my happiest memories were fishing up the coast
 Maybe my birthplace, Massillon, Ohio, because that's where it all began
 I don't know, but my guess is right here in San Francisco
 If my legacy can afford it
 10:35 AM, 10/27/2017, Telegraph Field
 Meeting Jack and Nathan at Trieste at 11:30
 Gonna sing me a book to a piece of music today
 To quote Tony Montana, I've been quoting him a lot lately
 I don't know why, but the line in the movie where he says
 "Then what? You're 50, you got a bag for a belly"
 Never resonated until I turned 50
 Anyhow, I dreamed last night that I was in the war in the Philippines
 It may have been inspired by the photo I saw
 A flash of Elorde at the boxing gym yesterday
 That, and the movie Hacksaw Ridge
 I watched with Caroline last night right beside her in her bed
 I didn't pay attention to the movie much and said
 "All war movies look the same"
 But really, I've been thinking bout all my things this year
 And wondering what will become of them when I'm no longer living
 I need to take steps for this inevitable thing
 Like Jack Dempsey from Colorado, I'd like to be like him
 I'd like to leave a few things behind for the Mark Kozelek Museum

Audio Features

Song Details

Duration
10:26
Key
2
Tempo
126 BPM

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