Odes to Joy

Three Sheets to Kishkiyya · Track 82 · middle

Crapulous

VOLUME IV — the HUNGOVER morning after. The idiom and the song's title hook: "Crapulous". Its true history: England, from Latin 'crapula' — gross excess turned into the misery after; ornate self-reproach. Render this beat of the night as the band's affectionate, funny, celebratory tribute — the idiom itself is the chorus hook.

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
Behold the morning sun, a glaring golden crime
Upon the vaulted ceilings of my brain.
The little hammers keep a wretched time,
And build a grand cathedral from the ache.
I wore the victor's wreath just yesterday,
I drank the velvet rivers in the dark.
Now I am just a monument of clay,
A fallen statue resting in the dirt.

[Chorus]
I am crapulous!
Oh, hear the grand and heavy Latin sound.
A misery so ornate and fabulous,
It pins my noble shoulders to the couch.
Not merely sick, not simply overthrown,
But crapulous, upon a ruined throne!

[Verse 2]
The ancients built this architecture well,
From Roman streets the word crapula fell.
The resinous and heavy dregs of wine,
That leave a shadow on the noble mind.
I claim the heritage of ancient drink,
The academic sorrow of the loud.
I am too magnificent to even think,
Just wrap me in a heavy morning shroud.

[Bridge]
The colonnades are shaking on the floor,
The tapestries are tasting of the smoke.
I lean my aching forehead on the door,
And marvel at the dryness in my throat.
Oh, glorious and fragile human shape,
To earn so beautiful and vast a name!

[Chorus]
I am crapulous!
Oh, hear the grand and heavy Latin sound.
A misery so ornate and fabulous,
It pins my noble shoulders to the couch.
Not merely sick, not simply overthrown,
But crapulous, upon a ruined throne!

[Outro]
Let lesser mortals whisper they are ill,
Let common drinkers hide inside the dark.
I wear my classical disaster still,
A monumental sorrow in the heart...
Just as soon as the floorboards stop spinning entirely.
Pick a song