Lyrics
The sun above me and a concrete floor below
Scratch at the chain links maybe bare my teeth for show
Fed twice a day I don't[4] go hungry anymore
Feel in my bones just what the future has in store
I pace in circles so the camera will see
Look hard at my stripes, there'll be no more after me[5]
Laze by the shoreline while the sailors disembark
Scratch out a place to sit and rest down in the dark
Smell something burning downwind just a little ways
They set up camp and sing and sweat and work for days
I have no fear of anyone[6] I'm dumb and wild and free
I am a flightless bird and there'll be no more after me[7]
In Costa Rica in a burrow underground
Climb to the surface, blink my eyes and look around
I'm all alone here as I try my tiny song
Claim my place beneath the sky[8] but I won't be here for long
I sang all night, the moon shone on me through the trees
No brothers left and there'll be no more after me[9][10]
Banter
- It’s sung by three creatures who are- none of them are with us anymore. Though sometimes, the fellow in the first verse, people think they saw him running down the streets and highways around Brisbane or Gold Coast or something. People think they saw him. They think they saw one and they look up little clips of the creature that looks a little like your dog or something, scurrying down a highway. Maybe, maybe the last one. Maybe. Maybe it’s just a dog. (2009-11-28)
- I got so sad when I wrote that song. 'Cause this is about the golden toad in Costa Rica, there's none of them left at all, right. It's one of those documentably extinct animals that we killed so that we could cut some forest down. (2011-12-16)
- This is to things that go extinct and are no more. (2012-12-16)
- This is the sort of song a person might write if he's beginning to wonder if he's ever going to have children. (2013-10-19)
- This was on Life of the World To Come. [woo!] Yeah, fellow Bible obsessives. Finally, I get some Bible here. That's what they're saying. I was worried that there was not enough Bible, except for the one that quoted I Corinthians. This is kind of a song about hopelessness, and the long, steady contemplation thereof. (2015-04-11)
- This was on Life of the World To Come, and it's called Deuteronomy 2:10. Not two hundred and ten, there is no chapter two hundred and ten. Chapter 2, verse 10. You can follow along. (2015-04-12)
- This song is also about things that died and won't come back. (2016-10-29)
Live Performances
Footnotes
1. The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; (KJV)↩
2. The demo for Deuteronomy 2:10 was released on The Life of the World in Flux. ↩
3. The focus on extinctions in this song might also be seen in Genesis 30:3, which mentions being "the last ones of our kind". (Credit: Annotated TMG) ↩
4. "won't" (2015-04-12) ↩
5. This refers to the thylacine (or Tasmanian tiger), which became extinct in 1936. The last known thylacine died in captivity in the Hobart Zoo in Australia, as described here. (Credit: Annotated TMG) You can watch footage of it in its cage - the endling. ↩
6. "anything" (2015-04-11, 2015-04-12)↩
7. This apparently refers to the dodo, which was hunted to extinction by 1690 on the island of Mauritius. (Credit: Annotated TMG) ↩
8. "stars" (2015-04-11, 2015-04-12, 2015-04-16)↩
9. The final verse refers to the golden toad, a Costa Rican toad rendered extinct by climate change, among other causes. The last known toad was found in 1989. John confirmed this reference at the Troubadour, December 16, 2011: "I got so sad when I wrote that song. 'Cause this is about the golden toad in Costa Rica, there's none of them left at all, right. It's one of those documentably extinct animals that we killed so that we could cut some forest down." (Credit: Annotated TMG) ↩
10. Sung as "No others left, and there'll be no more after me" on the demo. ↩