Old College Try

Lyrics

From the housetops to the gutters
From the ocean to the shore
The warning signs have all been bright and garish
Far too great in number to ignore

From the cities to the swamplands
From the highways to the hills
Our love has never had a leg to stand on
From the aspirins to the cross-tops to the Elavils[1]
But I will walk down to the end with you
If you will come all the way down with me

From the entrance to the exit
Is longer than it looks from where we stand
I want to say I'm sorry for stuff I haven't done yet
Things will shortly get completely out of hand
I can feel it in the rotten air tonight
In the tips of my fingers
In the skin on my face
In the weak last gasp of the evening's dying light
In the way those eyes I've always loved illuminate this place
Like a trashcan fire in a prison cell
Like the searchlights in the parking lots of hell
I will walk down to the end with you
If you will come all the way down with me

Banter

• This was the first song I wrote for Tallahassee. (2005-07-02)
• This is like a love song from a guy who’s fixing to serve divorce papers on his wife so he can beat her to it. (2005-10-20)
• This is a song which I wrote for the people who are in love, and, and -- yeah. Because sometimes you're in love and then you know, you get a feeling. But it's a different feeling. It's a feeling of doom. And then you say to yourself, 'Oh, I'm just worrying, I'm just a person who worries, there really is nothing wrong...' But then, there's the reasonable voice that's saying, 'No, no, there's really no doom just around the corner, lurking in a big old suit, getting ready to claw out everybody's eyes. That's irrational.' Right? And then the part of you, the more spiritual part that always has a lock on the truth, says, 'Oh no, something very, very bad is going to happen (2005-10-29)
• This is a song about looking into the eyes of your beloved and saying 'Let's have a staring contest.' (2009-10-10)
• This is a song about when two people who love each other very much accept their lot in life to torture each other to death. It's called Old College Try. (2009-12-01 Webster Hall)
• When I was writing Tallahassee I sort of had a cinematic vision for it and I wanted... being the first song on the album, to me it's sort of the introductory... it was stage play. This is the one where the characters see one another from across the stage and meet one another's gaze and think 'I will be standing when you are no longer standing.' (2021-09-23)

Live Performances

• 2009-12-01 Webster Hall
• 2015-05-31 - Amoeba Records, San Francisco (JD solo - recording)

Footnotes