Tuesday, June 1, 2010

sweaters

Back in the free wheeling Napster days of the interwebs, I found a recording of a live performance of Undone (the Sweater Song), one my favorite Weezer tracks. Actually I'm sure I found several, but this one in particular stuck with me. It replaced the odd dialogues that pass for verse with some spoken word poetry about... love? At least in part. It's been lost to the ravages of changing hard drives, but I found this service Grooveshark, which is very much the new Napster. On a lark, after getting El Scorcho stuck in my head this morning, and sure enough turned it back up again. I've had snippets of this poem stuck in my head from time to time for the last 10 years, so I've transcribed the whole thing for future reference. A quick google of the first line reveals it to be the work of one Tim "Speed" Levitch, famed NYC tour guide(?), who conveniently has his own wikipedia page.

(Aside: the same search reveals a Youtube video of same - it's not the original, and the guy covering it is both off key and got a large chunk of the words wrong. Not to say I'm 100% on what I've got below, but they're by far more right than his.)

And each of you is a reminder to the earth of what it's capable of
you are all the reasons, jumping, rational, lackadaisical, irrational
you are ceaseless sieges on the city of joy
the reason Agamemnon went to troy
you are you own gods
abase yourself
at the knees of yourself
intelligence is not a discipline it is an experience
allow it to explode
destroy buildings I'm sorry I hurt your feelings
did I lose that sweater? or did it lose me?

And language was invented so people could lie
don't just say I love you let your love perspire and fly
it is the most profound gymnastics and incredible calisthenics
let me pole vault you
let me cartwheel into your beauty in an ideal love affair
we never have to say "I love you"
stutter for "By the way, I love you"

Sweaters that are loneliness which is an delusion
sweaters that emasculate creating confusion
a giant repression melting into suppression
sweaters of lycra
sweaters of spandex
we don't need them
sweaters of knitwear creating the reason that Caesar went to Gaul
we don't need the sweater
walk through the sweater
the sweater that murders and marauds
the sweaters that take over our lives and remind us that we don't like the way that we walk
sweaters
walk through the sweater apocalypse and find your own warmth

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm so glad I found this here. I've been searching, but everyone else seems to have the words wrong. This seems like the most accurate transcription out there. Beautiful song and moving poetry.

Unknown said...
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