Vic Chesnutt
Текст песни It Is What It Is

I am a monster

Like Quasimodo

Or Caliban the natural man

Giving wild ripostes to my reflection



One ugly morning

In a rage

Father threw an apple

Into my carapace



And like the invisible man

Directing traffic

I'd be ineffective

No matter how enthusiastic



Amid the masses' frenzy

Participation

In this massive

Separation



Appearance is everything

Nothing is how it seems

And civilized society

Is calm civility



I'm the phantom of the opera

Singing beauty and at ease

Or Henry Darger's

Autobiography



And that is curt clues to my essence

Planned obsolescence

Appearance is everything

Nothing is how it seems

In a market economy

It's called marketing




And not exactly clawing my way to glory

Nor whimpering in the wind

But once positively

I'm teetering on the brink

Of an all-out breakthrough



But sometimes clear headed

Sometimes a doofus

Sometimes very cordial

And sometimes aloof

I am syrupy optimistic one moment

Then gravely pessimistic the next

Irritable as a hornet sometimes

Then agreeable as it gets



I'm not a pagan

I don't worship anything

Not gods that don't exist

Nor the sun which is oblivious



I love my ancestors

But not ritually

I don't blame them or praise them

For anything that they passed along to me

I don't need stone altars to help me hedge my bet

Against the looming blackness

It is what it is





Thanks to Nick