A crucial filament is all but spent;
Soon it will be dark in my basement
My heart is waxing the slick floor again,
Hoping I will slip and fall in love
Well she gave me the choice
To remain and rejoice,
Or to recoil and rebel
Well papa, this gravity attack,
Yeah, it's a gravity attack,
And I can't seem to carry, much less bury the past

Well your ex-girlfriend said I was a terrible mess,
Yeah, she's got a real good head on her shoulders
When the singer spoke and confessed
She didn't really smoke cigarettes,
She said her teenage brother smoldered
On a hot bed of coal in a sterile white room
Underneath that Joy Division poster
He moaned papa--
He moaned papa,
Somtimes I gotta vent my spleen!
Sometmes I gotta vent my spleen--
When I get shattered in the heart
And scattered in the brain

Well all those medicines in those sermons
Still can't keep his brazen nose from turning
And salvation it may come free of charge,
But faith alway costs him something
They say there is nothing as sacred
As the blood between brothers,
When it's pricked from there thumbs
And exchanged beneath the covers
Well papa, my brother is gone!
Yeah, my brother is gone,
So would you tell now how it is,
That I'm supposed to get along

Well, you asked for a chorus but you got a refrain
Yeah, it's another sad song that moves like a train
You can't wistle to it but you can fast forward through it,
Flick it off your shoulder like dead skin
They say my head on a plate
May curve the debate
Over the unbearable high cost of living
But papa, everything falls apart!
Everything falls apart!
And the grass will grow
As surely as they will break your heart