I Just Work Here

Pivot point, pivot point
Which foot leads?
It’s a chance dart
Tossed at a dance chart
Go back to what yesterday left
Or hit new horizons at full speed?
What you can’t do
Is leave it up in the air
Pick a direction
Or we aren’t going anywhere

Putting out brushfires
As you spark another blaze
Tangled up in cross-haired wires
Yet still the music plays

And here’s an empty echo chamber
Compounding sounds of borrowed voices
No hooks in sight to serve as anchor
For your tapestry of choices

Pivot point, pivot point
It’s such a poignant choice
Down that hard rocky ground
Guts and glory bound
Or turn back around
And own your hometown
Retelling second-hand stories under a mask
Over and over to anyone who asks

Juggling jaws and grasping straws
Struggling to claw
Free from the cage of fame
Chained like a half-tame
Trained dancing bear
Don’t blame me
I just work here

Yanked in six directions
Away from your beating heart
Split up in scattered sections
Sacrificed on the altar of art

I can see your rising ire
Bright as any flame
The sting from your cold shoulder
Burns me just the same

Pivot point, pivot point
Who else can we appoint?
It’s your landscape to expand
Head for ever-higher peaks
Or tread in waves of quicksand
That’s Excalibur in your hands
So swing that sword like it’s your own
For you’re the one that pulled it out of the stone

Juggling jaws and grasping straws
Struggling to claw
Free from the cage of fame
Chained like a half-tame
Trained dancing bear
Don’t blame me
I just work here

Gifted you are, oh yes it is true
But the gift was not meant only for you
We all chipped in to give you your due
Bending with trends
Leads to crowded dead-ends
So no more can any of us depend
On borrowed sounds with ears to lend
Tomorrow follows the course set now
There’s no choosing when, only how

Oh I know if the roles reversed
I might roll my eyes like you
For we surely haven’t seen the worst
Of what you’re going through

Juggling jaws and grasping straws
Struggling to claw
Free from the cage of fame
Chained like a half-tame
Trained dancing bear
Don’t blame me
I just work here

It’s a pivot point, pivot point
Fate hinges on this juncture
Do we blast faster toward the past
Or cast it off for the future?
Craft tomorrow’s architecture
And build something new to last
Or charge forever under flags at half-mast?
Whatever you do, don’t hesitate
That drawbridge gate ain’t fixin’ to wait

Juggling jaws and grasping straws
Struggling to claw
Free from the cage of fame
Chained like a half-tame
Trained dancing bear
Don’t blame me
I just work here