Bright Eyes If The Brakeman Turns My Way Lyrics

If The Brakeman Turns My Way Lyrics

When panic grips your body and your heart's a hummingbird

Raven thoughts blacken your mind until you're breathing in reverse

And all your friends and sedatives mean well but make it worse

Every reassurance just magnifies the doubt

Better find yourself a place to level out



Got a cricket for a conscience, always looks the other way

A cocaine soul starts seeming like an empty cabaret

Hey, where have all the dancers gone? Now the music doesn't play

Tried to listen to the river but you couldn't shut your mouth

Better take a little time to level out



I never thought of running

My feet just led the way



Mixed up signals, bullet train

Cars are switched out in the crazy rain

And I could meet you any place

If the brakeman turns my way



All this automatic writing, I have tried to understand

From a psychedelic angel who was tugging on my hand

It's an infinite coincidence but it doesn't form a plan

So I'm headed for New England or the Paris of the south

Gonna find myself somewhere to level out



Are your brothels full, oh Babylon, with merry middlemen?

Never peer out of their periscopes from those deep opium dens

All this death must need a counterweight, always someone born again

First a mother bathes her child, then the other way around

The scales always find a way to level out



I tried to pass for nothing

But my dreams gave me away



Mixed up signals, bullet train

People snuffed out in the brutal rain

I could live to any age

If the brakeman turns my way



It's an old world, it's hard to remember

Like a dime store mystery

And I'm a repeat first time offender

Who has rewritten history



Mixed up tea leaves, phantom pain

Fuzzy logic in the crazy rain

Getting better everyday

If the brakeman turns my way



Mixed up signals, bullet train

Cars are switched out in the blinding rain

And he'll be smiling as he seals my fate

When the brakeman turns my way