Micheline

Lyrics

[Verse 1] Micheline used to come to our house And knock on our door My dad would answer and say, "What do you want, girl?" And she'd say, "Can I take a bath with Mark?" My dad would say, "My son ain't here" And send her home and shut the door, and we'd all laugh And Micheline would walk down the street, glowing and smiling Like she'd just gotten Paul McCartney's autograph Her brain worked a little slower than the others and She wore thick-rimmed glasses She took a different bus to school than the other kids And was in different kind of classes When she got older, a neighborhood thug moved in with her And started taking her welfare payments He took her down to the bank, helped her withdraw her savings It was put away for her, and he went off with it The cops caught up with him, he did a little time And cut to many years later He's doing life in a Florida penitentiary with his father And both of them, for murder [Chorus] Micheline, Micheline Micheline, Micheline Micheline, Micheline, Micheline She wanted love like anyone else Micheline, Micheline, Micheline She had dreams like anyone else [Verse 2] My friend Brett, my friend Brett, my friend Brett My friend Brett, he liked to play the guitar But he had an awkward way of playing barre chords With two fingers, spreading his index and middle fingers really far apart One day, in band practice, he dropped like a deer was shot And was flopping around like a fish He had an aneurysm triggered by a nerve in his hand From the strain he was putting on it I went to see him in Ohio He had a horseshoe-shaped scar on his scalp and he talked real slow We played pool like we did in our teens And his head was shaved, and he still wore bell-bottom jeans In '99, I was on tour in Sweden when I called home To tell my mom that I got a part in a movie When she said "Mark, there's something that you need to know— Brett died the other day You really should send a letter to his mom and dad" And I got on my train in Malmo and looked out at the snow Feeling somewhere between happy and sad [Chorus] My friend Brett, my friend Brett My friend Brett, my friend Brett My friend Brett, my friend Brett, my friend Brett He had a wife and a son My friend Brett, my friend Brett, my friend Brett He just liked to play guitar and he never hurt anyone [Verse 3] My grandma, my grandma, my grandma My grandma, my grandma, my grandma Before she passed away we'd go and visit her at my aunt's house When I was small I couldn't bear the shape she was in So at the top of the driveway, I'd sit in the car One day, I was just fucking around when I put it in reverse And I was free-falling I remember the car moving backwards My heart was beating and I blacked out Another car was coming down the street And I totaled them both, and I got knocked out My grandma, my grandma, my grandma My grandma, my grandma, my grandma First time I met her, she lived in L.A. I think it was Huntington Park I made friends with a kid named Mark Sullivan And another kid named Cyrus Hunt We'd go downtown and get ice cream and feed french fries to the pigeons And talk to the handicapped vets from Vietnam It was the first time I saw a hummingbird Or a palm tree or a lizard Or saw an ocean, or heard David Bowie's "Young Americans" And I saw the movie Benji in the theatre [Chorus] My grandma, my grandma My grandma, my grandma My grandma, my grandma, my grandma I heard she had a pretty hard life But after her first husband passed away She met a man from California who treated her really nice My grandma, my grandma My grandma, my grandma My grandma, my grandma, my grandma, my grandma Was diagnosed at 62 Her kids stepped up to the plate for her And they were there the whole way through