Harder Harmonies - La Dispute

Like a shadow on a shadow, a phantom in a film strip

Faint glimmer of the past trapped in mother’s old slides

Sits still in the apartment while sifting through some pictures

Of the child that he once was and the sense of hope they framed

«It's a shame»

And I fear that fate while the humming from the street keeps me awake

He says, «I let life get twisted

Get worn out, torn up, and late with the rent.

And

Now nothing makes sense except the bench and that piano

A feeling nearing order when I’m pressing down the chords.»

And he plays

And it swells and breaks, but what’ll it take to make my life sound like that

And brings a fever, a dream of sweat and ecstasy

A kiss on every hammer hit that follows as the keys fall down and

Bring an order first, then chaos, then a calm, that

Paints every shift in murals on the wall.

And

It presses to your neck

It clutches to your hips

Softly sings to you of fireworks and God and art and sex and it’s strange-

That it feels so right when nothing else does

But all the while he’s playing there’s a humming

Coming up and through the window from outside

And even he has to admit a certain melody in it, but then why can’t he

harmonize?

It’s like the city’s got it’s own song but he can’t play along

He sees the notes as they fly by but always plays them wrong

And in the bathroom it gets blurry, gets warm and distorted

Like light pushed the orange of the pillbox he poured in

His palm.

It falls to the floor, he smiles as it hits

«Sounds a little like an instrument.»

Like a voice in the choir, that hum and that drumbeat of life as an art-form and

Fire through the streets that keep moving us in silence to phantom baton sweeps

Keep tapping to the tempo of our feet

And all the ones who seem to fit the best into the chorus never notice there’s

a song

And the ones who seem to hear it end up tortured by the chords when they fail

to find

A way to sing along

And when you sing the wrong thing it all starts collapsing

Starts to ring out and feedback, starts lapsing and crashing, on notes that

don’t clash

But that never quite feel like they match

And I never quite feel like mine match

There’s a melody in everything

I’m trying to find a harmony but

Nothing seems to work

Nothing seems to fit

There’s a melody in everything

I’m trying to find a harmony but

Nothing seems to work

Nothing seems to fit

There’s a melody in everything

I’m trying to find a harmony but

Nothing seems to work

Nothing fits