There's only one light on in the house And that's the light up in the hall And it's shining on the back of my head And I'm concentrating hard On the cigarette, to the ashtray From the ashtray back to my lips So I lean up from my easy chair I rub my three day beard And give that thousand yard stare As I recall all the time and the money we spent Before I became irrelevant So the straw dog threw rock salt And the precious girl took a bow and walked As I ran my finger over the screen door Yeah, every kiss has reeked of betrayal Since my h**ne jumped the guardrail And decided who she wanted to be once more
Now, every night I'm paralyzed By the fear of rope burns and morning light And the smell of wet cement Since I became irrelevant Now, memory's just a flash flood A thick and black sticky mud And heartache it's like a breaking bone It was always twelve hours on a missionary line You think I would've spared some time But I didn't, I never went home Now, it occurs to me like blinds undrawn Or a bullet from a shotgun That she knew long ago, oh, what it meant To feel irrelevant Now, I'm always smilin', cryin' And hidin' my intent Since I became irrelevant