In the middle of the night I was sleeping sitting up
When a doctor came to tell me, "Enough is enough"
He brought me out into the hall (I could have sworn it was haunted)
And told me something that I didn't know that I wanted to hear
That there was nothing that I could do to save you
The choir's going to sing, and this thing is going to kill you
Something in my throat made my next words shake
And something in the wires made the lightbulbs break
There was glass inside my feet and raining down from the ceiling
It opened up the scars that had just finished healing
It tore apart the canyon running down your femur
(I thought that it was beautiful, it made me a believer)
And as it opened I could hear you howling from your room
But I hid out in the hall until the hurricane blew
When I reappeared and tried to give you something for the pain
You came to hating me again and just sang your refrain

You had a new dream, it was more like a nightmare
You were just a little kid, and they cut your hair
Then they stuck you in machines, you came so close to dying
They should have listened, they thought that you were lying
Daddy was an asshole, he fucked you up
Built the gears in your head, now he greases them up
And no one paid attention when you just stopped eating
"Eighty-seven pounds!" and this all bears repeating

Tell me when you think that we became so unhappy
Wearing silver rings with nobody clapping
When we moved here together we were so disappointed
Sleeping out of tune with our dreams disjointed
It killed me to see you getting always rejected
But I didn't mind the things you threw, the phones I deflected
I didn't mind you blaming me for your mistakes
I just held you in the door-frame through all of the earthquakes
But you packed up your clothes in that bag every night
And I would try to grab your ankles (what a pitiful sight)
But after over a year, I stopped trying to stop you
From stomping out that door
Coming back like you always do
Well no one's going to fix it for us, no one can
You say that, "No one's going to listen, and no one understands"

So there's no open doors and there's no way to get through
There's no other witnesses, just us two

There's two people living in one small room
From your two half-families tearing at you
Two ways to tell the story (no one worries)
Two silver rings on our fingers in a hurry
Two people talking inside your brain
Two people believing that I'm the one to blame
Two different voices coming out of your mouth
While I'm too cold to care and too sick to shout

You had a new dream, it was more like a nightmare
You were just a little kid, and they cut your hair
Then they stuck you in machines, you came so close to dying
They should have listened, they thought that you were lying
Daddy was an asshole, he fucked you up
Built the gears in your head, now he greases them up
And no one paid attention when you just stopped eating
"Eighty-seven pounds!" and this all bears repeating


Lyrics submitted by Freddox, edited by PartlyBloc

Two Lyrics as written by Peter Joseph Silberman

Lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.

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Two song meanings
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  • +10
    General Comment

    Joshua 27 is right. "Hopsice" is a concept album about a man who works at a hospital, falls in love with a cancer patient, marries her, and then watches her die. I think the psychological and physical breakdowns described in this song are all a result of the cancer. If you ask me, the entire album is genius.

    What I love about this song (and the whole album, for that matter) is how it differs from traditional cancer stories. I've heard so many cancer stories that drip of sadness but in the end they all arrive at something positive: "I found the meaning of life," "I discovered what's really important," "My wife died but she was the love of my life and I was blessed to have the time with her I did," "I'm at peace about what happened," etc. But in this story the overwhelming emotion isn't sadness, it's anger. The cancer patient throws phones at her husband, blames him for her mistakes, and daily threatens to leave him. And the narrator doesn't romanticize his relationship with his wife; he actually lets us in on its dysfunction and admits that they were married hastily and at the disapproval of their friends. There's no redemption in this story at all, and that's what makes it so powerful. I love it!

    EmilyAppleon September 09, 2009   Link

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