The Destruction of the Art Deco House - White Hinterland

They’re knocking down that Art Deco house

The clawfoot tub is cracked and crushed

The mattress springs and the telephone wires

Gnash now through the air like crocodiles

Everything is coming up in 2×4's

Concrete walls and concrete floors

High rise homes, high rising rent

The atmosphere is closing in

There’s no stars up above when you tilt your head

Though the night is blank and black as pitch

It is not what it seems

What it seems

The polymaths around the town

Yield and shift their weight around

On a new boy, a young wunderkind

He’ll give us hope and cure the blind

It’s you they’ve chosen, my favorite son

To heal the sick and cure the blind

Your path is paved, you look terrified

You are not what you seem

Oh what you seem

Oh, what I see when I’m dreaming

Oh, what I see when I’m dreaming

Oh, am I dreaming

Oh, am I dreaming

You’re just sinews and bones, smiley faces and frowns

There’s a series of numbers that dictate your wiles

Green at the wick, you are still a child

And you stumble when you walk

The guileless cavalry in their brass-buttoned coats

Can’t they see no men of pith

Are going to come to lift them from the fuselage

So let’s skip town, you and I

Far from where the hemlock lies

Through the beryline hills, like ezekial’s wheels

Cradling the clouds that hold our view

Let’s pass the cities and their neon lights

Their copper-tops and steely spires

Let’s trade them for the simple life

For they’re not what they seem

What they seem

Oh, what I see when I’m dreaming

When I’m dreaming

Oh, what I see when I’m dreaming

Oh, am I dreaming

Oh, am I dreaming

Our days back east are done in numbers

Our days back east are done and over

Our days back east are done and numbered

I’ll test the weights and weigh the odds

You’ll want for nothing even when we’ve got nothing

Nothing, nothing at all