Paint By Numbers- Spoonboy
On the playground you learned how to share with the kids,
but you still didn t feel you fit in.
How fitting your confusion when you turned 16:
you knew how to paint by numbers, but you knew it wasn t rock and roll.
you learned tight pants, spray paint, and eyeliner.
you said glam rock would save your soul.
But you couldn t grasp that the rebellion you wanted
wasn t something you could ever be sold.
ANd I never understood how someone could be so willing to be
absorbed into what I never thought could pass as identity.
And I always felt bad for the kids who had to share their faces
with sad teenagers across the world
who d found something to fill their loss,
without ever addressing the cause.
Then I saw your speech patterns imitated exactly
by a girl in seattle and again in minneapolis,
so i guess you must have learned that from tv.
you said you d find yourself for real,
but fell that far from the goal.
you had to paint by numbers but knew it wasn t r-r-r-rock and roll.
