Sweetbreads - Andrew Bird

When I was a little boy I threw away my action toys

I became obsessed with operation

With Hearts and minds and certain glands

You learn to keep a steady hand

And thus began a morbid fascination with…

Sweetbreads, I could taste what you were thinking

Sweetbreads, that’s the taste of neurons thinking

Do you wonder where the self resides

Is it in your head or between your sides

And who’s going to decide its true location?

Cause it’s a question for the centuries

From communion to mad cow disease

But is it worthy of a song — all life’s location?

Oh and the sweetest sweetbread of them all within the kingdom of afar

Call them thoughts and metaphor-inations

They call them

Sweetbreads, I could taste what you were thinking

Sweetbreads, that’s the taste of neurons thinking

Does the thought of bowels red and black

The thought of tongues that taste you back fill you with a nauseous elation

Where a simple trip to the grocery store could fill you with an abject horror

Can you taste the misery of those crustaceans?

Oh and the sweetest sweetbread of them all

Within the kingdom of afar should’ve caused some silent machinations

They call them

Sweetbreads, I could taste what you were thinking

Sweetbreads, that’s the taste of neurons thinking

Aw, I could taste what you were thinking

Oh, give me your thoughts about sweetbread