People kept asking at shows, so here they are. Words by Cal, music by all four of us. Please don't use them without asking. We'll probably say yes.

There's been a nail in my back tire since Thanksgiving,
I fill it up on Third Street every night,
it's thirty pounds when I head in to work
and twenty on the way back home,
and you can live like that. It turns out all right.

Slow leak, slow leak,
nothing ever goes flat all at once,
slow leak, slow leak,
a little every day, a little every month.

You said you'd call me Sunday from Columbus,
I kept the ringer turned up all the way,
by Tuesday I was checking now and then,
by Friday I unplugged it,
and I couldn't tell you which day you went away.

(chorus)

I could buy a patch kit,
I could buy a brand-new tire,
but I kind of like the hissing.
It's the sound of something trying.

(chorus, twice, loud)

Everybody's out by the cars again,
the band's inside but the night is out here,
somebody's radio, somebody's cousin,
somebody swearing that this is the year.

It's parking lot weather,
coats on the hood,
nobody's going home yet,
nobody would.
We could stand here forever,
or at least until two.
Parking lot weather,
me and you.

The gas station sign's buzzing like it's thinking,
Joey's telling the one about the cop,
the Rollerdrome's closing, the moon's on the Hardee's,
and nobody out here wants it to stop.

(chorus)

THIRD SHIFT

(first time live: 4/25/98 at the Lamplighter)
My dad worked third shift at the plant by the river,
came home when the paperboys came,
he'd sit in the kitchen with the radio low
and the sun coming up in the frame.

Third shift, third shift,
the whole town asleep but you.
Third shift, third shift,
somebody's got to see it through.

Now I'm up until four with the lights on the highway,
no time clock, no lunch pail, no plan,
just a song that won't finish, a car that's half packed,
and a map I can't fold in my hands.

(chorus)

back to the front page