The Hold Steady - The Most Important Thing Lyrics

When the band played "Sally Cinnamon"
It felt like 1991 again
I didn't get into them too early in
But I still got into them
Right now that seems like it's the most important thing

That's the thing about Gideon
He knows just a little bit about so many things
Knows too much about certain things
Knows some guys who know some Latin Kings
Right now, that seems like it's pretty much the only thing
We're baby birds with broken wings and we sing

Yeah, we sing unity songs but the scene's still splintered
Yeah, we're stretched thin and we're stressed at the seams and we dream
Yeah, we dream like screens but it's still out of focus
Sure we know it's just show biz, but it still seems to surprise us
When they hook us by the mouth and pull us up
And then they try to fry us

That's the thing about Charlemagne
He got all washed up in the amber waves of grain
Rubbed up on the bars on the bluff
Got tangled up in the double dutch
You know he drank too much
He never really ate enough

And it was so so sad with Charlie in his sick bed
He looked like hell and smelled like chemicals
Maxing out on medicine and feeling all invincible
ICU at Regents Hospital

It felt so cool with Holly at the bus stop
Yeah, we could feel it coming through our arteries
Running low on energy and nodding off in revelry
Faded blues of Memphis, Tennessee
Mississippi River always holds it all together

We sing unity songs but the scene's still splintered
We're stretched thin and we're stressed at the seams and we dream
Yeah, we dream widescreen but we're still out of focus
Sure we know it's just show biz
Still seems to surprise us
When they hook us by the mouth and pull us up
And then they try to fry us

We've done a pretty good job of frying ourselves I think
Then she blows blasts of static into music from the big pink
Stumbled into the foyer and pulled the bookshelf over
And we were drowning in the literature
Bram Stoker hit your head
Ginsberg hit your dick
A big black Bible hit your head
And that's how we got born again