Written by: Derek Webb
Appears on: Just Don’t Want Coffee, Guild 1
Lyrics:
I don’t see what you see in me
I’m just flesh and bone
Many hours at the carousel
Postcards from far from home
Sometimes I feel as useless as my empty words
Old president’s dogs, clean paws, no dirt
What do these words mean?
Sometimes I just don’t know
Sometimes I just can’t see
Where it is I go–I waste
My whole day thinking over
Things I’ve said and avoiding myself
Like the plague in my head
I know that you see me and I know
You’re about me, that’s why You
Let me roam
Another 10 miles, another 10 miles, another 10 miles
Where does this all lead
And why must I follow it?
Nothing is black and white
(even me, I must admit)
I jot down the facts and work
On consistency, but open up the
Closet door; it’s George
And the cat, and me
My shifting eyes like sands
Cannot focus on the void,
Concentration still
“Get thee behind me, Freud”
I’m grasping at straws and
The bale is almost gone
The fire’s grown much too dim
Nights grow much too long
I am holding things Yours, not mine
While I should cling to You like a cow
Beneath the light of a highway sign
See also: MusicBrainz.
This song portrays the author’s inability to understand why God would continue to give us chance after chance, in spite of the fact that we continuously fail to live up to His standard. The author spends much of the song musing about his own shortcomings, as can be evidenced in lines such as:
“I don’t see what you see in me I’m just flesh and bone”
“Sometimes I feel as useless as my empty words”
“I waste my whole day thinking over things I’ve said and avoiding myself like the plague in my head”
“My shifting eyes like sands”
The song is really about how, often times, God will kind of let us roam around blindly and bump into things, get ourselves into trouble, and do what we will, but he never ceases to love us or watch over us.
“Many hours at the carousel”…He finds himself continuing to go ’round and ’round, doing things he probably shouldn’t, as if he was on a carousel ride.
“Postcards from far from home”…Goes hand in hand with the chorus. He’s straying farther and farther from home, another 10 miles.
“But open up the closet door; it’s George, and the cat, and me.”…All three things are curious! Curious George, ‘curiosity killed the cat’, and curious Derek.
“I should cling to You like a cow beneath the light of a highway sign”… In the south, cows wandering in pastures migrate to the area beneath highway billboards because they provide light. If you drive down the road in the evening, you will often see cows just standing there under billboards, “clinging to the light.”
In the early years, the band used to intro this song as their only “dance song.” Also, during the Fall ’96 tour, Derek jokingly intro-ed the song by saying that he’d recently had a short-lived crush on Chelsea Clinton, and changed the line “George and the cat and me” to “Chelsea and the cat and me”. What does that mean? Don’t ask me…