Round Here

"This guy has heard all those life lessons that you're given when you're a child about what you should do to be a good adult and carve out your name in society -- all those cliches. He's an adult now and has the rights to do the things that 10-year-olds aren't allowed to do -- but so what, it's nothing. Everything has such consequences for him, he can't touch anything or anyone, he's terrified. By the end of the songs, he's so completely lost; he's become more of a ghost than a person, and he's taking other people down with him." - Adam Duritz

Go to sleep, little angel
Go to sleep, little one..

Step out the front door like a ghost
into the fog where no one notices
the contrast of white on white.

And in between the moon and you
the angels get a better view
of the crumbling difference between wrong and right.

I walk in the air between the rain,
through myself and back again
Where?
I don’t know

Maria says she’s dying,
through the door, I hear her crying
Why?
I don’t know

Round here, we always stand up straight
Round here, something radiates

Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand
She said she’d like to meet a boy who looks like Elvis
She walks along the edge of where the ocean meets the land
Just like she’s walking on a wire in the circus

She parks her car outside of my house, takes her clothes off,
Says she’s close to understanding Jesus
But she knows she’s more than just a little misunderstood
She has trouble acting normal when she’s nervous

Round here, we’re carving out our names
Round here, we all look the same
Round here, we talk just like lions
But we sacrifice like lambs
Round here, she’s slipping through my hands

Sleeping children better run like the wind
Out of the lightning dream
Mama’s little baby better get herself in
Out of the lightning

She says, "It’s only in my head."
She says, "Shhh.. I know, it’s only in my head."

But the girl on the car in the parking lot says:
"Man, you should try to take a shot,
can’t you see my walls are crumbling?"

Then she looks up at the building,
and says she’s thinking of jumping.
She says she’s tired of life,
she must be tired of something.

Round here, she’s always on my mind
Round here, I got lots of time
Round here, we’re never sent to bed early
Nobody makes us wait
Round here, we stay up very very very late

I can’t see nothing, nothing
Round here

Catch me if I’m falling
Catch me ‘cause I’m falling down on you

I said, I’m under the gun
Round here

And I can’t see nothing,
Nothing
Round here

(words by Adam Duritz)
(music by Dave Janusko, Dan Jewett, Chris Roldan & David Bryson)
(c) 1993 EMI Blackwood Music Inc./Jones Falls Music/ Free Ohio Publishing/This Ought To Get ME A New Guitar Music/Pork Chops and Apple Sauce Publishing BMI