Ennui

Lyrics

[Intro]
(a clock ticking — but slower than a clock should, as if time is tired of keeping time)
(distorted bass enters like a millstone that has been grinding since before the mill was named)

[Verse 1]
I've been sitting in this café
Since before the café was a café
Since before the stone was cut
Since before the cutter
Had a word for stone
Or a reason for cutting
Or a morning
Worth the effort
Of sharpening the blade

I watched the zinc bar get installed in 1893
And I've been drinking ever since
And the drinking tastes
Like the exact temperature
Of a room
Where everyone has just left
And the room
Doesn't miss them
And the not-missing
Is the cruelest thing
A room can do

[Pre-Chorus]
(detuned piano, menacing and wry)
They invented me in French — ennui
Gave the flatness a name
As if naming a desert
Makes it shorter to cross
It just makes the sand
More articulate
About its own indifference

[Chorus]
(heavy — drums grinding, bass pressing down)
Ennui, ennui
The reward system has tendered its resignation
Ennui, ennui
I've seen the understudy of every sunset
And the understudy
Was adequate
And the adequate
Is the thing I cannot forgive
The space between wanting something
And the something
Arriving
And discovering
The arriving
Was the only interesting part
And the part is over
And the part
Was always going to be over
And the over
Is where I live

[Verse 2]
(quieter — just voice and bass, menacing and intimate)
You think boredom is a Tuesday problem
A rainy afternoon with no plans
Boredom is eleven billion years
Of watching civilizations
Season themselves
With ambition
And then serve themselves
To entropy
Which has never once
Sent a compliment
To the chef

I am the space
Where the wanting lived
After the wanting moved out
And left the radiator on
And the radiator
Is still warm
And the warm
Means nothing
To a room
That has forgotten
What cold was for

[Bridge]
(everything drops — just the clock ticking, slower than before)
I sat down uninvited
At a table meant for two
And the two who were supposed to sit here
Haven't been born yet
Or have already died
And the table
Doesn't care which
And neither do I
And the neither
Is the ennui
And the ennui
Is why I'm ordering
Another wine
That I won't taste
From a list
I wrote
Before the grapes
Were planted

[Outro]
(the grinding bass returns — heavier, the weight of the whole album's time-keeper)
Ennui
(gravelly, barely awake, barely caring)
The adequate sunset
The warm radiator
The table for two
Where nobody sits
(clock ticking — slower, slower, fading — time tired of itself)