La Dispute - Harder Harmonies lyrics

Like a shadow on a shadow A phantom in a film strip Faint glimmer of the past Trapped in mother's old slides Sits still in the apartment While sifting through some pictures Of the child that he once was And the sense of hope they framed "It's a shame" And I fear that fate While the humming from the street Keeps me awake He says, "I let life get twisted Get worn out, torn up And late with the rent And now nothing makes sense Except the bench and that piano A feeling nearing order when I'm Pressing down the chords" And he plays And it swells and breaks But what'll it take to make My life sound like that And brings a fever A dream of sweat and ecstasy A kiss on every hammer hit That follows as the keys fall Down and bring an order first Then chaos, then a calm That paints every shift in Murals on the wall And it presses to your neck It clutches to your hips Softly sings to you of fireworks And God and art and s** And it's strange That it feels so right When nothing else does But all the while he's playing There's a humming coming up And through the window from outside And even he has to admit A certain melody in it But then, why can't he harmonize? It's like the city's got its own song But he can't play along He sees the notes as they fly by But always plays them wrong And in the bathroom, it gets blurry Gets warm and distorted Like light pushed through the orange Of the pillbox he poured in his palm It falls to the floor He smiles as it hits Sounds a little like an instrument Like a voice in the choir That hum and that drumbeat Of life as an art-form And fire through the streets That keep moving us in silence To phantom baton sweeps Keep tapping to the tempo of our feet And all the ones Who seem to fit The best into the chorus Never notice there's a song And the ones who seem to hear it End up tortured by the chords When they fail to find A way to sing along And when you sing the wrong thing It all starts collapsing Starts to ring out and feedback Starts lapsing and crashing On notes that don't clash But that never quite feel like they match And I never quite feel like mine match There's a melody in everything I'm trying to find a harmony But nothing seems to work Nothing seems to fit There's a melody in everything I'm trying to find a harmony But nothing seems to work Nothing seems to fit There's a melody in everything I'm trying to find a harmony But nothing seems to work Nothing fits