Shane Koyczan - Beethoven lyrics

Listen his father made a habit out of hitting him see some men drink some men yell some men hit their children this man did it all because I guess all men want their boys to be geniuses Beethoven little boy living in a house where a name meant nothing living in a house where mercy had to be earned through each perfect note tumbling up through the roof to tickle the toes of angels whose harps couldn't hold half the pa**ion that was held in the hands of a young boy who was hard of hearing Beethoven who heard his father's anthem every time he put finger to ivory it was not good enough so he played slowly not good enough so he played softly not good enough so he played strongly and when he could play no more when his fingers cramped up into the gnarled roots of tree trunks it was not good enough Beethoven a musician without his most precious tool his eardrums could no longer pound out rhythms for the symphonies playing in his mind he couldn't hear the audiences clapping couldn't hear the people loving him couldn't hear the women in the front row whispering Beethoven as they let the music invade their nervous system like an armada marching through firing cannonballs detonating every molecule in their bodies into explosions of heavenly sensation each note leaving track marks over every inch of their bodies making them ache for one more hit he was an addiction and kings/queens it didn't matter the man got down on his knees for no one but amputated the legs of his piano so he could feel the vibrations through the floor the man got down on his knees for music and when the orchestra played his symphonies it was the echoes of his father's anthem repeating itself like a brok-broken recor-brok-broken record it was not good enough so they played slowly not good enough so they played softly not good enough so they played strongly not good enough so they tried to mock the man make fun of the madness by mimicking the movements holding their bows a quarter of an inch above the strings not making a sound it was perfect see the deaf have an intimacy with silence it's there in their dreams and the musicians turned to one another not knowing what to make of the man trying to calculate the distance between madness and genius realizing that Beethoven's musical measurements could take you to distances reaching past the towers of Babylon turning solar systems into symbols that crashed together causing comets to collide creating crescendos that were so loud they shook the constellations until the stars began to fall from the sky and it looked like the entire universe had begun to cry distance must be an illusion the man must be a genius Beethoven his thoughts moving at the speed of sound transforming emotion into music and for a moment it was like joy was a tangible thing like you could touch it like for the first time we could watch love and hate dance together in a waltz of such precision and beauty that we finally understood the history wasn't important to know the man all we ever had to do was listen.