Thursday, July 15, 2004

I look straight in the window, try not to look below
Pretend I'm not up here, try counting sheep
But the sheep seem to shower off this office tower
Nine-point-eight straight down I can't stop my knees.

Chorus:
I wish I could fly
From this building, from this wall
And if I should try,
would you catch me if I fall?

My hands clench the squeegee, my secular rosary
Hang on to your wallet, hang on to your rings
Can't look below me, or something might throw me
Curse at the windstorms that October brings.

I look straight in the boardroom; a modern pharaoh's tomb
I'd gladly swap places, if they care to dive
They're lined up at the window, peer down into limbo
They're frightened of jumping, in case they survive.

I wish I could step from this scaffold
Onto soft green pastures, shopping malls, or a bed
With my family and my pastor and my grandfather who's dead

Look straight in the mirror, watch it come clearer
I look like a painter, behind all the grease
But paintings creating, and I'm just erasing
A crystal-clear canvas is my masterpiece

I wish I could fly
From this building, from this wall
And if I should try,
Would you catch me if I fall?
And if I should try,
Would you catch me if I fall?

When I fall...
-Barenaked Ladies, "When I Fall"

Sure, the sentiment's been done before. But I have yet to hear it done quite as well as the Ladies do it here.
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Unconditional love? What's conditional love, then? How can you love someone and put a caveat, a disclaimer on it? No sense to it. You love someone, or you don't. If they do something that makes you stop loving them, perhaps you didn't love them as much as you thought, to begin with- or perhaps you never stopped loving them. That's the thing to do, really: never stop loving them. No matter what, never stop loving.

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