[Jandek] The Ruins of Adventure: Lyrics

[Danen D. Jobe]

So here it is, the lyric "template" for "The Ruins of Adventure." Meaning: please take a shot at this! On this album, as with a lot of the studio work, he yowls and rolls words about. I spent a lot of time trying to get everything, but something's almost certainly off. Any other ideas are welcome - meantime, here's the lyrics as I heard 'em.

1. The Park

I want to make a park and live on it.
I don't know anyone in the city 
that understands this part like you do.
I'm leaving it here,
I'm going to walk away, 
but with the park and the dogs.
The birds and the squirrels,
the cats and the people go away.
Because it's my park.
The land was just here.
I took it and I made it a park.
I like the trees
Green leaves
Alive.
I'll make some pathways
and put rocks all around.
I don't need a gymnasium
I'll sit up straight and keep my mind on you
You came and took control.
You'll tell me what to do.
And that's what it's all about.
I'm making this park.
There'll be lots of things to do out there.
Hello.
How are you?
Fresh air and the dogs.
And, if there's some new thing,
we'll check it out.

2. Bluff Brink

Bless you cleric under your coats
with the tools of your trade.
Poison bottle that you hold.
The keys of time you spend in a trance.
They know their lives' in your hand.
And you create all your disabilities.
You feel good about your wasting away.
And all the circles that you dance around,
your swirling, whirling, dizzy sick.
And you don't care who's around.
Their reality doesn't enter your thoughts.
You're walking stupid and stumbling about.
I've got to tell you that I really think
you're on some kind of canyon bluff brink.
Why don't you jump and forget about it?
But you don't have to be around,
the way the day just flutters by.
You're in a coma and the earth is the sky.
Your left is right, and it's all mixed up.
And you keep playing that game all the time.
I've come around and I see you this way.
I'll go away, I've just got to say
I've got my own tornado
and my own mountain,
and I'll swirl in a whirl and stare from the top.
The world is big and the people so small
I can't possibly care about it all.

3. Completely Yours

Please don't ignore me.
I'm your very best friend.
I'll be here forever.
You can count on that.
You've got your damages,
and I've got mine.
We've corrected the discrepencies.
And we're moving on.
It's accurate, the computations:
one and one is two.
I don't need a calculator,
I've got my mind to use.
You don't incorporate how I was before.
It doesn't matter to you.
And I forgot me anyway.
I just remembered
your eyes and mouth and hands.
The way that you love me.
I'm completely yours.
This time I'm certain.
I give up my life.
I throw it to the universe, 
where you are tonight.
I have restated my vows again to you.
You're all that I care about.
Let the world go on its way,
and we close down the day.
And the sun goes down.
I'll be with you at night and forever long.

4. Mysteries of Existence

I could reconcile my habits with you.
You accepted all that I was.
I can do all the things superlogical.
I focus my thoughts like a laser beam.
But what is the objective?
If I'm just defending myself, 
I have to be a human dynamo
and weave a spell on myself.
With your reconciliation I don't need a defense.
I can join the circles and triangles.
I can be with crystal rainbows
dancing the cross waltz.
I'm happy with the blues and reds,
 the furniture and your clothes.
A glint of sun and the dark of the night,
as I turn to the left and turn to the right.
I don't need a special challenge.
The elemental things are just fine.
And I'm going to the south and east,
or maybe up the northwest way.
Surround my peripheries
with some different kind of menagerie.
There's no sense bumping at the wooden door.
Drink well, iron gates, river, grassy fields - walking to and fro,
being here and there.
Unfolding the mystery of existence.

5. The Ruins of Adventure

I don't know what I'm doing and never did.
The nights seem so pointless.
And stupid survival leads to stimulation, 
but really, if you're not fighting for your life
you'll just hurt yourself 
or find a cloud of unknowing to hide behind.
Get lost in a fake smile.
Yeah, talk it up, laugh and joke, 
but don't include me.
I just can't do it.
And what the wheels turn
I wish I wasn't here, 
but there's nowhere to escape to - oh well.
Maybe there's action prefabricated
with myself in the middle of the situation
but underneath everything I'm just waiting
like a blade of grass in the field.
To live and die, it's too bleak.
No mystery, solid fact,
the ruins of adventure
smoking in the burnt-out city
and the wildfire devestation.
We'll return from adventure,
embrace the gray reality, 
a passing on.
Why should I leave a cloak,
oh where, what?
I feel so sick of days.
Minutes are hours.
Time hangs oppressive.
Go away time!
Leave me at once.
I don't want to know you.
I'll take the sun.
I'll take the black night.
I'll walk through perception, 
but it's so hard to wait.
I want to go now.
I wait, but what can I do?
The trouble in my mind I can't shake loose.
I want to go out the back door, get lost for good.
I want to disappear and never be found.
I want to cease to exist as far as I know.
I could always go drinking and never come back.
I could go traveling in search of nothing.
I don't want to know the world is changing.
Just beat down my door, come on you nothing.
I just don't care and I can't get it right. 
I heard tell of salvation, but what I saw was controlled
either by the inside or from without doubt.
Give me your rules I don't want to post them
or be imposed upon.
I could do a good thing, discover a cure.
I can't lift my hand up to open a door.
I'm stuck in depression.
Get out, go away, go away, go away. 
I hate that I got any responsibility.
I don't want to talk, I don't want to walk,
 but maybe if I walk I'll escape talk.
If I can be alone I'll live through this.
I'll take the hammer, I'll pound the steel.
I won't give an inch to you, you rotten thing.
I won't fall in your hole.