Choked Out

Lyrics

Diamonds in the firmament
All reserves completely spent
Someone set up the oxygen tent
Everybody here's real proud to present
Choked out

Two hundred dollar take-all purse
Half-nelson to suplex reverse
Worried look on the face of the ringside nurse
At one, for once, with the universe
Choked out
Choked out, choked out, choked out

I stretch and strain with all my might
Drift[4] off into the velvety arms of the night
Kick and claw and scratch and bite[1]
Fire up the grill, everybody eats tonight
Choked out

No brakes down
An endless dark incline
Most of the boys
Won't[2] ever cross this line
If they[3] all want to die dead broke that's fine, that's fine
Everybody's got their limits
Nobody's found mine

Crowd screaming like hounds at the heat of the chase
All the colors of the rainbow flood my face
I lift right off into space
I can see the future, it's a real dark place
Choked out, choked out, choked out
Choked out, choked out, choked out

Banter

I was sad that there was a little vote. You do in the studio, I do these sort of song introductions, they're shorter than these. Most of the time. [band laughs] I mean, there's longer bits, but nobody's listening, I know that in the control room they have muted the mics so they don't have to hear me for 5 or 6 minutes going, well, I wrote this on the floor of my office, but this one had one all the way through the rough mixes. Sometimes they hurt to cut off because you think it's kinda funny, well, do I wanna wear that around like an albatross and say it all the time? But with a very uptempo number, so you're trying to get all jacked up to do it in the studio, it's hard to get all jacked without an audience in front of you so it went like - THE VOICE DESTROYING SONG KNOWN ONLY AS CHOKED OUT!!! (2015-04-12 - City Winery, New York City)
Because you are not privy to the demos, you do not know the spoken intro that preceded the demo that I sent Peter and Jon. It went like this: THE VOICE DESTROYING SONG KNOWN ONLY AS.....CHOKED OUT!!! (2015-04-13 - Union Transfer, Philadelphia)
This is a song… I think everybody can relate to this song… yeah, no [audience laughs]… you know the feeling when someone’s depriving you of oxygen and uh… just before you go you think; It’s kind of nice. (2022-05-11)

Live Performances

Footnotes

1. "You can kick, you can claw, you can scratch, you can bite" (2015-04-12) 2. "they won't" (2015-04-12) 3. "do they" (2015-04-12) 4. "lift" (2015-04-13)