Friends In Real Life, self-titled album lyrics. YOU ARE THE OCEAN (Song For Jonas) I've been singing sad songs today. Hey! Give it a break. If you surf long enough, you become the wave, and soon you're the ocean again. You are the ocean, my friend. I'm a pissed off motherfucker. (Hey!) Hey! Give it a break. If you skate long enough, you become the pavement, and soon you're the dirt again. I'll be the dirt, my friend. But how do we breathe with all we've lost? How do we ever begin again? Well I'm not sure, but to start, let's try and make some songs he'd love to sing. Or just give it a spin. (Hey!) You are the ocean, my friend. FAILED CAREERS Didn't make it as a scholar, momma. Didn't cut it as a jazz man, poppa. If you could see how far from liberation I remain, my brother, I'd be so ashamed. And I didn't flip the dope like Sammy. Couldn't hack it with the six gun, Danny. I think you've got a heart that's true and born to die. As for me, I like to be in bed by nine, 'cause you only live once...well, I don't know about that, but I'll only get one shot at this one. Whatever I've done, I can't take it back, so I'll try and keep it up front. Didn't make it in the High School band. Couldn't cut it as a song and dance man. They thought I'd be a dish pit prodigy, but I spent my shifts yapping about my philosophy! The wrong half of a brooding writer. A street sweeper, not a real street fighter. I used to hit the road, no rider, roll to the gigs on my Radio Flier. You only live once... BUCKEYE Picked him up in Buckeye, dropped him by the bus. He killed a man and told some lies, but who am I to judge? In a secret place I've been a warlord and a surf instructor, but in my clearer moments all I did was love him. We're all gonna die, I've known it since I was a kid. The thing I had to learn is: before that, we're gonna live. I'll wake up racing the sun to catch the street car, pretend the days were better before I ever set an alarm. I don't have to tell you that we have been wicked, but it's no big deal, at least not the way I was thinking. And in a dream you didn't forgive me, exactly, but you said it would be alright to go on living. Well, alright! ADVICE If you get advice from a man in his early thirties it's best not to listen unless you want bad advice. I was out walking our dogs when you called up with existential problems, and I don't think I handled it right. If you take advice from a man in his late eighties, watch your back. It could change your life. I know it's silly 'cause he's not here, but I'm out listening on the porch at night. 'Cause when you're thirty two, there's nothing you can do. (that isn't true.) If you take advice from a man in his late thirties, what the hell? Well, hey, it's your life. I'll say renounce anything in the way of your kindness. Wish I took that advice. I guess that's the thing with advice, is that even the best of it won't move an inch of the things you're unwilling to change. So I'll change my shirt, it's no problem, make change for a dollar, but changing my character...now, that's pain. (that's pain!) 'Cause when you're thirty seven, it's too late to get into heaven. (it's never too late.) SURF ROCK ANTHEM (lofi study beats remix) [ft Ceschi Ramos] Got a letter from Pepe made me want to fuck a cop up, free the gang out that lock-up. Instead I took a breath and wrote him back. I watched rage turn into mourning. I've done it before, but it still felt corny. I don't want the truth, I want the truth to sound badass. Do you remember being young and peeing in the street, singing songs of freedom and doing crimes? Well, I don't live for war any longer. I live to put my feet in the water. But I still long for glory sometimes. So if I die young, say it was the government, even though it wasn't them. Give the kids something to believe in. Just the words to a song. But if I die young, I was probably trying to surf, got in over my head at the spot by Rippers like the right wave would carry me home. But it won't. Felt so much guilt for barely writing back. Whirlwind life, tough to stay on track. I never hopped a train, and I never will. It's not that I'm afraid of dying, just preoccupied with all of this surviving, dodging the violence of everyday life. Guess I was bolder as a kid, today I'm middle-aged and don't know shit. Still screaming: “Fuck the pigs” like I was ten, to pay the rent. It's hard to rest with guns up to our heads. Endless invoices in this system constantly profiting of our existence. There is no good plan or life hack. Grow old if you can, half my friends weren't given the chance, and that's the way it is for most it seems. So if I die young... MAY ALL THE LOWER REALMS BE EMPTY I got my mind on the dirt and the dirt on my mind. I got the rays melting metal while I step outside. I got the house by the river, but that's run dry. It's later than I thought, had to check the time. Pour one out for the hungry ones. She was screaming in the road where the light don't come. When I showed up he took off running, but that's just luck. Here in the dark, we see clear for once. And I ain't tough. I roll the dice and hope I don't get stuck, but catch one sharp edge and don't ever get up. No time for what's fair: what's true is enough. I got the heat on my mind and my mind on the heat. I got a concrete box with a junk AC. I got the nights it don't get below triple degrees. Ice pack gripper, trying to catch some sleep. Light one up for the ones in hell. Light two for the ones who kept it to themselves. They all say they'll take the years, and they'll never tell...a lot of people learn to sing when they hit the cell. (Hey! Who's tough?) And I ain't tough. I stopped rolling the dice, but I'm not paid up, but catch one bad case and sometimes that's enough to go down so long you don't get back up. I got my mind on the dirt...and the river run dry...pour one out for the ghosts...and she was screaming in the road...I roll the dice...but catch one sharp edge...they all say they'll take the years...but catch one bad case...and I ain't tough. DOWN TO THE RIVER I went down to the river, maybe a little to pray. I know he's not coming, but I still wait. Do you wanna go swimming? Do you wanna just cry? I say it'll be okay, but that's just two chords and a lie. We go down to the river, mostly to swim. I'm a piece of paper blown in the wind. Are they gonna call Dante 'cause they wanna get high? I say it'll be okay, but that's just two chords and a lie. And I think that we all use a lie to get through, sometimes, just so long as we always return to the truth in time. So I go down to the river... UNDER WATER I didn't want to think it would be hard to learn to live, but that's the thing: it really is these days. So many ways to get pulled under. Under water in your mind, and in the space you left behind. We used to go there all the time. I think we both thought we had more...both thought we had more time. We think in flattened time and walk on flattened earth. We draw straight lines out to where we can't see the curve: so many ways to get pulled under. Under water in your mind, and in the space you left behind. We used to go there all the time. I think we all thought we had more...all thought we had more time. RETIREMENT PLANS Well I went up north, and I got real sick. Then I got back home, and I got sick again. I had some time for thinking laying there in bed: if I'm waiting for the right conditions, I'm waiting to be dead. My dad can't retire, and my mom can't too. They raised us on the discount groceries and the thrift store shoes. I don't mean that it was hard times. Nah, we had it good. I just mean they saved their money. What did it all go to? I was working writing software. Man, I love that shit. Ruby on Rails in the backend...I know it ain't hip. We wrote code for social workers, and I liked what we did. Not gonna fix a broken system, but I don't know what is. But then I started hurting, some days too much to move. I wasn't built for all this typing, but what's one more thing to lose? Used to love to be a smoker, and I could slam that booze, but sometimes the things you love...well, they just don't love you. Used to think we'd set the world on fire, find freedom in the glow. Now I'm ready for a quiet life, but the world's looking pretty flammable, and a man that I look up to picked up a gun when his time came due. I think he'd say: “Don't go looking for war, but sometimes war comes looking for you.” So I went up to see him, and I got real sick... ROUTE NINE LEGENDS I saw Kevin in the old parking lot. He hit me up for change. He didn't recognize me, but I'd know him any place. I heard he did some time, and then I heard he got an apartment, but he didn't want to stop and chat. Just continued on his way. I don't think it's true that people never really change. Sometimes I wonder if it's all we ever do. But it's hard to make it happen on a schedule. It seems like we're just spinning our wheels, and then suddenly...we move. I saw Jeff and Ruth at their house on a Tuesday afternoon. I knew them when we were young, and I'll know them when we're gray. I liked when we were feral youth who joined the circus, but not compared to sitting with people I love after things turned out okay. I don't think it's true that people like us never change, but we don't always change quite in the ways we would have liked to. Sometimes we just respond to life a time or two or ten hundred, and give 'em time to spread and those reactions will be tangled in the roots. Sometimes I think I've changed, and then I visit where I grew up. The old ways come alive, and I don't always like them now, but there's something that I love about a stop sign where I can't turn left on Sundays in the summer 'cause that's when there is the flea market in town. I think that there are some things that we can't ever change, but I don't mean some great evil or cowardice inside. There could be a lot of that, but sweep it all away: the thing that's left is empty, and it's full, and we can't kill it if we try. Thanks for listening. friendsinreallife.com <3