some words for the road
On my very first "official" day of graduate school, I woke up in the morning to my alarm clock, which was set on Pittsburgh's independent radio station, WYEP. And I heard this deep-throated voice belting out something like "Whaaaaat is it that makes me just a little bit crazy?" Which I thought was an interesting prelude for the academic career that awaited me. Turns out, I was wrong in my interpretation of that first line. He really said, "Whaaat is it that makes me just a little bit queasy?" Queasy, crazy, whatever. After wondering for two years about the origin of that song, I have found it: "Afternoons and Coffeespoons" by the Crash Test Dummies, a band which takes me back to the mid-nineties and my obsessive MTV-viewing during junior high.
Anyways, given the title, it seemed appropriate that I post the lyrics on my Eliot-themed blog:
What is it that makes me just a little bit queasy?
There's a breeze that makes my breathing not so easy
I've had my lungs checked out with X rays
I've smelled the hospital hallways
Someday I'll have a disappearing hairline
Someday I'll wear pyjamas in the daytime
Times when the day is like a play by Sartre
When it seems a bookburning's in perfect order -
I gave the doctor my description
I tried to stick to my prescriptions
Someday I'll have a disappearing hairline
Someday I'll wear pyjamas in the daytime
Afternoons will be measured out
Measured out, measured with
Coffeespoons and T.S. Eliot
Maybe if I could do a play-by-playback
I could change the test results that I will get back
I've watched the summer evenings pass by
I've heard the rattle in my bronchi ...
Someday I'll have a disappearing hairline
Someday I'll wear pyjamas in the daytime
Afternoons will be measured out
Measured out, measured with
Coffeespoons and T.S. Eliot