Lyrics
Wake up sixty minutes after my head hits the pillow, I can't live like this
And in the shower I am a sailor standing waiting, ready for the ship to list[4]
Everything looks burned up, I'm too scared to look around
Don't feel like going on, but come on, make a joyful sound
If you will believe in your heart
And confess with your lips
Surely you will be saved one day
Try to think of ways to fix myself but everything ends in a cul-de-sac
The beast broke from the barn while we were sleeping, face it, face it, he's not coming back
Don't see what the point is in even trying to fight
Look for the bigger picture when I close my eyes real tight
If you will believe in your heart
And confess with your lips
Surely you will be saved one day
Look for the sign of Daniel[5]
Consider the clues
Wait as long as I have to for good news
Wake and rise and face the day and try to stop the day from staring back at me
Busy hours for joyful hearts and later maybe head out to the pharmacy
Won't take the medication but it's good to have around
A kind and loving God won't let my small ship run aground
If you will believe in your heart
And confess with your lips
Surely you will be saved one day
Banter
- Some people think it’s a devout expression of faith in a benevolent god. I’m taking it those people just heard the chorus and skipped the part about the guy whose mind is contracting on itself and who is grasping in the darkness for some small sign of hope and pretending to himself, of course, that’s he’s been able to find it instead of just ambling through the sort of daily despair that will some day come to engulf us all. (2009-11-28)
- Perry [Wright] has a master's degree in divinity. This is a song that I wrote - oh man, my therapist had me talk about this, I disclose too much. I have this - the thing about me is I'm not even in the slightest bit afraid of dying. I think, the kind of music I listen to, I'm into it, right? What I'm afraid of is living with infirmity forever and ever. Which I probably should have thought about when speed was cheap, and there was so much of it in Portland. Back when - here goes my day job forever - I was sharing needles in bath houses, I should have thought about how long I was going to want to live. Because members in my family live for appallingly long times. We live to be very very old, and I always imagine my grandfather pushing 90 like, 'God, this sucks, why couldn't I have been one of those guys who dies young?'. He didn't say that, of course, because what a horrible thing for a grandfather to say to a young man. That would scar you forever. Might scar you just if you thought about it. (2009-12-01 Webster Hall)
- This is a song about when you’re having things happen to your body that are complicating your relationship to your body in a really, really disconcerting, troubling - not troubling in the sense that you reflect on it after lunch before you go back to work but live with it all day kind of deal. It was written at a very difficult time for me and so, when I get ready to play it, I remember the motel room where I wrote the lyric in Colorado. Here’s to that lovely motel room; it gave me something good. (2016-02-28)
Live Performances
Videos
Footnotes
1. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (KJV) ↩
2. The demo for Romans 10:9 was released on The Life of the World in Flux. ↩
3. John discusses writing Romans 10:9 in a Colorado hotel room after reading a Gideons Bible in the aforementioned 2009 Pitchfork interview. For context, see the quotation referenced in the Philippians 3:20 – 21 footnote.
Pitchfork: Well, that ties in with "Romans 10:9".
JD: Yeah, those two [referring to Philippians 3:20–21] are kind of a pair, I feel.
Pitchfork: That's one of the few songs where you actually have the verse in the song. This one says that if you believe, then good things will happen to you. It seems to be someone keeping that in their head literally when everything in their life is going to shit.
JD: That is a solid reading. There's a really personal aspect to it, too, that I don't want to go into. But that is one of the harder songs on the album. The last couple of years have been a challenge for me in a couple of ways. But yeah, you have these moments where you look for something to reach for. I think that's when people are very vulnerable to joining up with religion, when they're looking for some sort of promise. But it's also a time when you have to be honest with yourself about how attractive those promises are to you personally, not for some other person. The notion that you can make some decision to feel a certain way and be relieved of some suffering — that's legit, right? It's not something to be scoffed at or dismissed lightly.
Pitchfork: Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the whole idea behind believing, right? That's how my dad always explained it to me.
JD: Yeah. Because there is going to be a lot of suffering. So it would be nice to think that it won't have been in vain. (Credit: Annotated TMG) ↩
4. Sung as, "And in the shower the little soaps and shampoos seem like ancient bottled ambergris" in the demo. Ambergris is a product of sperm whale digestion, used for many years in perfumes, as incense, or as a ward against illness. (Credit: Annotated TMG) ↩
5. No clear sign of Daniel exists in the Bible or religious practice, according to A.K.M. Adam. Adam suggests that John is referring to "the handwriting on the Belshazzar's Wall (Dan 5)" (p. 126), but mentions that there are several other possible signs in the Book of Daniel. Another possible interpretation involves the Eternal Gospel Church, an extreme sect of Seventh-day Adventism, which holds that changing the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday is a mark of the Antichrist. They gained notoriety by purchasing billboard space throughout the United States proclaiming that this Mark of the Beast is stated in Daniel 7:25: "He will speak words against the Most High and oppress the holy ones of the Most High. He will intend to change religious festivals and laws, and the holy ones will be handed over to him for a time, times, and half a time." Adam, A.K.M. (2011). 'What these cryptic symbols mean': quotation, allusion, and John Darnielle's biblical interpretation. Biblical Interpretation 19: 109 – 128. (Credit: Annotated TMG) ↩