Leaving LA

I was living on the hill
 
 By the water tower and hiking trails
 
 And when the big one hit, I'd have a seat
 To watch masters abandon their dogs and dogs run free
 Oh baby, it's time to leave
 Take the van and the hearse down to New Orleans
 Leave under the gaze of the billboard queens
 Five-foot chicks with parted lips selling sweatshop jeans
 ♪
 These LA phonies and their bullshit bands
 Sound like dollar signs and Amy Grant
 ♪
 So reads the pull quote from my last cover piece
 
 Entitled "The Oldest Man in Folk Rock Speaks"
 You can hear it all over the airwaves
 The manufactured gasp of the final days
 Someone should tell them 'bout the time that they don't have
 To praise the glorious future and the hopeless past
 
 A few things the songwriter needs
 
 Arrows of love, a mask of tragedy
 ♪
 But if you want ecstasy or birth control
 ♪
 Just run the tap until the water's cold
 Anything else, you can get online
 A creation myth or a .45
 You're going to need one or the other to survive
 Where only the armed or the funny make it out alive
 ♪
 Mara taunts me 'neath the tree
 
 She's like, "Oh great, that's just what we all need
 ♪
 Another white guy in 2017
 ♪
 Who takes himself so goddamn seriously"
 She's not far off, the strange thing is
 That's pretty much what I thought when I started this
 It took me my whole life to learn to the play the G
 But the role of Oedipus was a total breeze
 ♪
 Still, I dreamt of garnering all rave reviews
 Just believably a little north of God's own truth
 
 "He's a national treasure now and here's the proof
 In the form of his major label debut"
 A little less human with each release
 Closing the gap between the mask and me
 I swear I never do this, but is it okay?
 Don't want to be that guy but it's my birthday
 If everything ends with the photo then I'm on my way
 ♪
 I watched my old gods all collapse
 
 Were way more violence than my cartoon past
 It's like my father said before he croaked
 ♪
 "Son, you're killing me and that's all folks"
 So why is it I'm so distraught
 That what I'm selling is getting bought?
 At some point you just can't control
 What people use your fake name for
 
 So I never learned to play the lead guitar
 
 I always more preferred the speaking parts
 ♪
 Besides, there's always someone willing to
 ♪
 Fill up the spaces that I couldn't use
 Nonetheless, I've been practicing my whole life
 Washing dishes, playing drums, and getting by
 Until I figured, if I'm here then I just might
 Conceal my lack of skill here in the spotlights
 Maya, the mother of illusions, a beard, and I
 
 Two-thousand years or so since Ovid taught
 
 Night-blooming, teenage rosebuds, dirty talk
 ♪
 And I'm merely a minor fascination to
 ♪
 Manic virginal lust and college dudes
 I'm beginning to begin to see the end
 Of how it all goes down between me and them
 Some ten verse chorus-less diatribe
 Plays as they all jump ship, "I used to like this guy
 This new shit really kind of makes me want to die"
 ♪
 My first memory of music's from
 ♪
 The time at JCPenneys with my mom
 
 The watermelon candy I was choking on
 ♪
 Barbara screaming, "Someone help my son!"
 I relive it most times the radio's on
 That "tell me lies, sweet little white lies" song
 That's when I first saw the comedy won't stop for
 Even little boys dying in the department store
 
 So we leave town in total silence
 New Year's Day, it's six o'clock AM
 ♪
 I've never seen a sunset this abandoned
 ♪
 Reminds me predictably of the world's end
 It'll be good to get more space
 God knows what all these suckers pay
 I can stop drinking and you can write your script
 But what we both think now is