So What If I Couldn't Take It - Jeffrey Lewis

So what if I just couldn’t take it anymore

I’ll just take a walk to the store

Looking for a bit of bottled rat poison to score

And I’ll pour down my gullet to nullify the sullenness

If it’s my destiny to kill me spill it in me

To begin to fulfill it give it a couple of minutes until it hits

But still it doesn’t seem to be taking effect

I’m still walking erect, what the heck?

what the hell?

Well at least I paid the guy with a cheque

So if the Bodega janked me on the poison I drank

All I gotta do is place a cancel call to my bank

But they put me on hold when I told them the story

First I cursed in the phone but the music ignored me

And it played, and it played, for such a long time

And then a voice said «we'll be with you soon, just stay on the line»

But just at that second my neck broke out in a sweat

I said «I bet this is it — the poison’s starting to hit»

I felt sick and in pain, I dropped the phone to the ground

And an operator came and said «can I help you now?»

But all that she could hear was just the sound of my death as I gasped into the

set

«Just let the guy cash the cheque» with my last rattling breath

And the burning bottle of crap that I sickly held in my lap

I quickly turned on the cap out of concern for the rats

So what if I just couldn’t take it anymore?

So what if I just couldn’t take it anymore?

I’ll just take the decision to walk on the bridge and try to fly like a pigeon

And I tramp up the ramp and all the bicycles pass

And I just can’t help but laugh when I think back on my past

And all of the retarded mistakes that I made

The broken-hearted dismay that started from the first grade all the way up to

today

And the walkway is steep, and the cars are all beeping

And the people are sailing to wherever they’re sailing

And I’m climbing the railings

I plan to stand and decide, but I just slip and I dive

And all the drunks on the side start to hold up their signs —

Mostly 7s and 9s, but now and then is a 10

And if I fell to earth I’d be dead that’s for sure

But like I said before it’s only water

And it’s worthless 'cos it isn’t on purpose, but I bob to the surface

But a large garbage barge comes

And it drops 20 tonnes of toxic waste on my face

And as I sink from the sun to whatever’s to come

My last sight is the Bums who all change their signs into 3s, 2s, and 1s

And then after this discourse, there’s a 3.6 — of course it must be from

Pitchfork

So what if I just couldn’t take it anymore?

So what if I just couldn’t take it anymore?

Staring down at the floor, staring up at the ceiling

'cos I never get used to always feeling so unglued

Need new emails to read through while I eat old Chinese food

I don’t want a life that’s like this, just take a knife to my wrist quick

All I’ve got is this chopstick but I could still make the plot thick

Just for the sake of context if I break it with my fist

For fun against my chest run into the wall next

And I’ll frown at the gash, then lie down in the bath with some Sylvia Plath

How many pages will pass until I’m facing my last?

I didn’t major in Math so I won’t wager no cash

But truth is stranger than fashion

And the danger is that all of the blood will amass

And the tub will fill-up so fast

'til I’m encased like a crab in a bathtub-shaped scab

They’ll have to take in a cab and scrape off in a lab

So what if I just couldn’t take it anymore?

So what if I just couldn’t take it anymore?

I’ll just call up the Mob and say

«I've got you a job, I guess you know what to do

Knock off this guy with the blues — an offer you can’t refuse»

And I’ll fax them a contract through a third-party contact that says

'Don't hold him for ransom, I’ll pay half in advance

Just mail me one of his hands which I’ll accept as your answer'

So say it so happens:

I happen to be out lying on a park bench and crying just like my normal way

But in most former cases no-one comes out of no place

Wraps masking tape on my face

But that’s what happens today

But before I get knocked off, my hand it gets chopped off

And dropped in a mailbox

And I’m locked in a trunk

But I’m flung out on the tar when the car hits a bump at exit one twenty-five

Out on the FDR drive

I get a minute of rest, and isn’t this interesting

Here comes the UPS man, the package ain’t hard to guess

But I gotta sign with my left-hand

So what if I just couldn’t take it anymore?