Lion's Teeth

Album: The Sunset Tree and Come, Come to the Sunset Tree

Lyrics

[Demo, spoken] This is a hard song for John to play.

The king of the jungle
Was asleep in his car
When your chances fall in your lap[2] like that
You've gotta recognize them for what they really are

Nobody in this house
Wants to own up to the truth
I crawl in shotgun and reach into his mouth
And grab hold of one long sharp tooth

And hold on
For dear life
I hold on

Well of course he wakes up
His paw hits the horn
I am gonna regret
The day that I was born

And then Mom
Rushes out to the driveway
My sister[3] too
Everyone's screaming
I am dreaming of you

I hold on
For dear life
I hold on

And my arms get sore
And my palms start to sweat
And the tears roll down my face
'Til my cheeks are hot and red and soaking wet

In come the cops
They blowtorch the doors
I start wailing[1]
The lion roars

There's no good way to end this
Anyone can see
There's this great big you[4]
And little old me

And we hold on
For dear life
We hold on
We hold on

Banter

• This is a song, it’s uh- You should really just not read your own press ever. It should be- We are a generation who, like, we kind of specialize in it, reading our own press. Checking out what people are saying about you. Terrible habit that literally everybody I know has. But this is the song, for some reason- it’s not a true story, it’s a revenge fantasy but all the people in it are real. And that was known when the record - it’s from The Sunset Tree, it was Lion’s Teeth - and when the record came out, they would say, ‘Well, whether the album finds John in a motel remembering stuff or attacking his drunken stepfather…’ And I’m like, my stepfather didn’t drink, right. At all. He was diabetic so he had like a beer and it like knocked his ass out, right. It was really kind of amusing because, like, you would start to wish that he drank more because he’d have a beer or two and he’d be very agreeable and quiet. 'Woah, man. Mike drank. That’s cool.’ But it rarely happened because he didn’t enjoy it. But I can’t for the life of me figure out why a bunch of people thought that the person who is passed out in the car in the driveway necessarily got that way by drinking. And then I realized, like, 'Oh, because they didn’t live in the total madhouse that was your house and people generally don’t just pull up in the driveway and go to sleep.’ (2012-06-22)
• This song has a different sort of animal in it. [song] There's a great deal I might say, none of it particularly interesting, about a pronoun slip that happened in there, where the concluding line is "there's this great big you, and little old me", but I traded in the "you" for a "me" both times, right? So, and I thought, well, one method of dream interpretation is that all the evil villains and horrible people chasing you down in your dream, those are also you. I dunno if that has anything to say about this song, but it might. I'll get back to you on it. (2013-07-26 Newport Folk Festival)

Live Performances

• 2004-10-15 The Social (recording)
• 2013-07-26 Newport Folk Festival (recording)
• 2019-04-30 Brooklyn Steel

Footnotes