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Back When I Was Four
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Jeffrey Lewis
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1
Back when I was 4 and I knew the name of every dinosaur
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I knew how to read ROM comic books
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My babysitter said I was really smart
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When the lights went out everything changed
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The radio music made me feel strange
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And I had a real bad dream about a gorilla in the bathroom
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Back when I was 6 I took everything real serious
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And I thought that every song that came on the radio
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Was referring to strange sexual acts
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Because they thought I wouldn't know the facts
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And being small is hard and no one ever tells you how
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And back when I was 8 I'd sit outside on an old milk crate
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And look out at the world from the stoop across the street
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The boomboxes and the hot concrete
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And every Halloween they hung
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A million rubber skeletons across ninth street.
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Back when I was 12 or so I swear to god I never felt so low
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Everyone but me was making out and eating cookies
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I had more than my brain could stand
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I threw my life in a garbage can
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I felt so weird
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I had to disappear
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In crying suicide disease.
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At 15 getting stoned felt good and it sent me back to childhood
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And nothing ever mattered to me more than that.
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But then 16 became eclipse
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My brain became apocalypse
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I was lost and found and I've never been the same.
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Back when I was 22 I left the best thing that I knew
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and I gave it up for fortune and for fame
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I played like I didn't know how
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I shocked the world
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I wowed the crowd
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But I deserved more than what they gave
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Back when I was 27 still nothing had been forgiven
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Clay turns into rock and rock just sits
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So sitting on a crowded beach
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I'd pretend I was a leach
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And stick to things here and there for a little bit
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Back when I was 31 I knew I'd become what I'd become
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Nothing left to reveal
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And nowhere else to turn
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So shocked and withered dumb and bitter
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And in need of a babysitter
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I'd gladly let my hand fall off and burn burn burn
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Back when I turned the big 4-0 I realized just how much there was to go
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And I started to think that being alone forever
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Wasn't where it was at
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So I pulled my head out of the window
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And I taught myself how to love real fast
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I started talking about painting
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With a woman in the laundromat
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Back when I was 50 and my first wife had just left me
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I felt okay and I sang my daughter
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Funny little songs
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And just when I thought the best was past
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I fell in love for real at last
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And it didn't even matter that it had taken me so long
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Back when I was 63 the public rediscovered me
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My comic books and records had all become rare cult-collector items
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Both my parents were deceased
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So they didn't see my records get re-released
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And I got a dog for the first time in my life
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Back when I was 74 my dog died and I got two more
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I still felt really good about my daughter
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And also about my girlfriend
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And I'd sing and draw a little bit
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But mostly I'd wake up early and sit
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And hang out with the puppies and wish that I could live forever
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Back when I was 87 my grandson had just turned eleven
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My woman was dead
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And my dogs were getting pretty old
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My body didn't work quite like it should
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But overall things were pretty good
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I was getting decent royalties from the reissued comic books and records
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Back when I was 106
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My only friend
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Was one goldfish
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Everyone I ever knew was dead and gone
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The goldfish never had a name
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And the neighbors thought I was insane
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And I flushed it down the toilet when I saw it floating upside down*
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Back when I was 128 I would sit outside on an old milk crate
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And look out at the world from the stoop across the street
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The boomboxes and the hot concrete
86
And every Halloween they hung
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A million rubber skeletons across 9th street
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Every Halloween they hung
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A million rubber skeletons
90
Every Halloween they hung
91
A million rubber skeletons
92
Every Halloween they hung
93
A million rubber skeletons
Jeffrey Lewis - Back When I Was Four
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