Billiard Player Song (2004 Peel Session)

He cursed like a billiard player
His stick upon the ground
Looks like an old man should be
Off and on, 20
Off and on
He's been here off and on
For 20 years
Off and on
He's been here off and on
Probably never will

It's a frame of mind and a comfortable chair
It's people who've been through what you've been through
You could call it a club, but it's not
I cannot possibly describe
A cigar and the time to use it

And he
Cursed like a billiard player
His walking stick upon the ground
He was a young man
She was a little girl
Had his heart, heart broken
The little girl
She was small
Had his heart broken
And the girl
She was small

He promised her everything
He knew he never had to deliver
He promised her everything
Ask yourself if you could do better
He promised her the unobtainable

Mama walks me out to the pump house
There's no man in the family now
Guess there's no point in asking
If I'm going back to school now, anyhow

They let him walk out in the yard
See one sunrise and sunset each
He gets to pick his last meal
He says, "I'll eat fuck all
Wrapped in nothing!
If I can eat it out there on the beach."

And it's gonna be a hard winter
The first of many hard winters
And it's, it's gonna be
A hard
Winter
You think you've seen hard?
Fuck that, this is hard
It's gonna be a hard
Winter

For her and hers
A hard winter

And a lot of people say she's crazy
Crazy from the sound
Of everything she knows breaking loose and falling down
And you could say crazy, okay, crazy, okay
But I don't think she's crazy
Not in anyway that matters

I think she's alright

She would ask
If she was young
And she didn't know why things were like this
And not in any other way

And he lied to her
He lied to her
He lied to her with a perfectly straight face
A face he was practiced in
From gambling, and other kinds of lying, and things in general