Jeff Mangum

Oh Sister

Jeff Mangum


Oh sister, don't be afraid of me 
I won't be nailing you down in the nursery 
Just like the rest of them did 
With those watery, wandering fingers that slipped 

That were supposed to be glorious and fine 
Oh sister, won't you believe in me 
I only wanted to be hard on your family 
Here with you now in the zillionth infirmary 
A mother makes frantic and drunk calls from Germany 
All of the time 
And oh sister 
Sweet brown and comely 
I will be be milking with you making fun of me 
Now that my moods are not what the used to be 
there is but no one alive laying next to me 
for such a long time 
Oh sister, sweet brown and beulahry 
milk from your blisters on your grandmother's jewelry 
there in the parlor all naked in front of me 

Watching the lights from the cracks making archery animal designs 
Rose Wallace Goldeline just moves her mouth over anything 
Fleshy free and flowering with oranges out in the open 
But don't you waste your sins again 
She don't need you 
or won't fuck your friends 
And you, you're American, so important boiling over 
To prove that she must still exist 
she moves herself about her fist 
and never ever ever give a shit 
about all those words you're wasting again 
Some pretty bright and bubbly wondrous dream 
You'd like to kill and claim 
And claim her as your own 
But don't you worry 

All those dainty and dirty emotions just go away and fade out on their own 
Sister, now that we're grieving 
Our fingers will falter 
Our lungs will be leaking 
All over each other and without even speaking 
We'll know that it's over and smiling or greeting 
Whatever comes next 
And oh sister 
You're getting married with some angry twister 

That you'll have to carry home drunk every evening from the cemetery 
And if he makes it back half alive you can bury him 
Under your sheets 
And oh sister 
now that we're leaving 
I can not imagine there is any meaning 
forgetting you ever could once had the feeling that made you keep on 

And pretend you were breathing of all of this world 
In an age of empty rings 
I don't want to feel the thing 
I don't even want to know 
and Rose Wallace Goldeline 
don't you ever die on me 
all the way it goes and flows