Pack a suitcase for the west coast
You need some sunshine and to wet your hair
Ever since you got Chuck Taylor All-Stars you walk everywhere

Meet some old friends
They’re at the bar
They’re taking pictures and getting stoned,
They tell the same stories they’ve told since they were four years old

Now no matter who I see
My pupils always grow
But no amounts of passion can help the time or ink flow

So now you drink just to keep from getting bored
You spent ten-thousand years in the orchards
And ever since you have left you never turned back this way
Until today when you’re feeling so down
And all of your old friends
They think you’ve sold out

Now the moon’s high and glowing
You are too and it’s freezing
And everybody grows up, but that don’t make it easy
Play Elliott Smith in the car, take in landscapes of white

So with your red hunting cap, you will carry the world
With those bags on your eyes
I hope that you’re comfortable
With your lime scented candles,
eat pavement. bend birches. go home.

Now I ain’t no hero
I still live in the past
I get pissed at the TV
and when life moves too fast
With a head filled with sex dreams and sports teams, I still move a lot

So I’ll spread my curses through all fifty states, I will eat my own soul and depart
With thin yellow paper I’ll tear through my heart,
And I will dissolve on the tip of my own tongue
And I’ll dream of birds and things like I did when I was young

The words “I love you”, a blue guitar, a battered book, an unnamed star
Are the gifts that I gave you for Christmas that I hope that you kept

She shot my kites down, in the back seat
Touching hands, misplace our parts
Our broken hearts’ sounds only echo when the windows are down

Now won’t you please help your mom, can’t you see she’s been crying
And if we fail now, it’s not from lack of trying
Because I’m trying real hard and I won’t use my youth as a crutch
And I try not to worry so much
About how and with whom I will die
Because with your warm arms around me, where the sea meets the sky
I could go now I guess and that would be fine
And if it meant I could see you again,
I think I’d go tonight
​
So now you dream just to keep from feeling bored,
You spent ten-thousand souls in the orchards
And ever since you have left you never turned back this way
Until today when you’re feeling so small
And all of your old friends
They don’t know you at all

And I hope when you are grown dear
Yes I hope when you are grown
That you learn how to let some things go
And fade into nothing,
Which is how it belongs
And I’ll dream of birds and things
like I did when I was young