The Singer But Not the Songs

Here's the current, with some footnotes for varied lines, as requested. When a line has changed, it's really just because I thought up a better one.

THE SINGER BUT NOT THE SONGS

I know which ring she wears on which finger each day of the week
And I know why she holds me as gently as a priceless antique
I know why she reminds me of poems built from leftover rhymes (1)
Why she puts on her socks and her shoes one foot at a time (2)
But I don’t know how she wears a floor length coat without dragging it along (3)
And I don’t know how she can love the singer
And I don’t know how she can love the singer
And I don’t know how she can love the singer but not the songs


I know exactly how long she likes her tea bag to steep
And just what she wants to hear most before she falls asleep
I know what it means when she adds one more name to her list (4) (6) *
And she doesn’t think I do, but I know just what’s clenched in her fist (5)
But I don’t know why she laughs at my jokes when the punchlines are wrong
And I don’t know how she can love the singer
And I don’t know how she can love the singer
And I don’t know how she can love the singer but not the songs

In my craft and sullen art I sit and labor all day (7)
The phony rubies in her necklace brush the table as she sways
And her eyes are like burned out wheatfields with smoke rising through the snow (8)
The music that she loves the best gets inside me and follows wherever I go

I know why she drives like she’s trying to get us both killed
What she does with the porcelain angels she buys at Goodwill (9)
I know why she throws away her days like old burned out lights (10) *
And I know why she sneaks out of bed and sits on the roof late at night
But I don’t know what she’ll remember about me after I’m gone *
And I don’t know how she can love the singer
And I don’t know how she can love the singer
And I don’t know how she can love the singer but not the songs


1 - formerly "I know why the roads rise to meet her when she goes outside"
2 - teehee. this is from an episode of All in the Family
3 - this jacket turns up in a lot of my songs, now that I think about it.
4 - couplet was originally "I know why she sits beneath the El tracks and watched the train / and how she always knows exactly the moment that it's going to rain"
6 - was later "I know why she reminds me of songs that may not exist." Changed for two reasons. 1. it clashed with the new line about "poems built from leftover lines," which I thought was much better, and 2. I sort of stole it. From Grandpa Simpson.
7 - from "in my craft or sullen art / exercised in the still night / when all the lovers lie abed / and only the moon rages" by Dylan Thomas.
8 - a leftover from an old song of mine called "Where the Sagebrush Grows." I think the lyrics are on adamselzer.com
9 - used to be "why she breaks the wings off...." Decided to go for something more vague.
10 - used to be "why she reads all the papers, then sets them alight."
* - denotes a line likely to change again