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