Smells Like Content (3:40)

Cover of Lost and Safe

From Lost and Safe and 4 other releases

“Balance.
Repetition.
Composition.
Mirrors.

Most of all, the world is a place where parts of wholes are described
within an overarching paradigm of clarity and accuracy.
The context in which makes possible an underlying
sense of the way it all fits together,
despite our collective tendency not to conceive of it as such.

But then again, the world without end is a place where souls are combined,
but with an overbearing feeling of disparity and disorderliness.
To ignore it is impossible without getting oneself into all of kind of trouble,

despite one’s best intentions to not get entangled with it so much.

Meanwhile,
the statues are bleeding green.
And others are saying things much better than we ever could;
as the quiet become suddenly verbose.

And the hail’s heralding the size of nickels.
And the street corners are gnashing together like the gears
inside the head of some omniscient engineer.
And downward flows the garnered wisdom that has never died

Then finally,
we opened the box, we couldn’t find any rules.
Our heads were reeling with the glitter of possibilities, contingencies…
but with ever increasing faith we decided to go ahead and just ignore them,
despite tremendous pressure to capitulate with fate.

So instead, we went ahead to fabricate a catalog
of unstable elements and modicums and particles.
With not zero total strangeness for brief moments which amount
to nothing more than tiny fragments of a finger snap.

Meanwhile,
we’re furiously seeing green.

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  • murderror

    the reason i mostly hate humanity, is because music this good isn't more popular.

    22 Feb 1:55pm Reply
  • bbabs

    This song assumes the existence of a magnetic monopole...

    27 Aug 2012 Reply
  • Sheepshow

    And the street corners were gnashing together like the gears inside the head of some omniscient engineer

    17 Jul 2012 Reply
  • Digitial5HT2a

    really nice

    30 Jun 2012 Reply
  • leoislostatsea

    And downward flows the garnered wisdom that has never died.

    18 Jan 2012 Reply
  • absentfriend

    I'm going to learn cross-stitching, then I'm going to put these lyrics onto throw pillows.

    28 Nov 2011 Reply
  • bongrouge

    expectation... leads to disappointment.

    27 Oct 2011 Reply
  • Septacle

    boys are happy living the mental life without reality

    2 Sep 2011 Reply
  • bongrouge

    Sounds like the lyrics were taken right from a book.

    14 Apr 2011 Reply
  • jkgerhat

    pretentious is pretentious and this song is ultimately wonderful

    30 Jan 2011 Reply
  • SamuraiDrifter1

    This is possibly the Books' most beautiful song. And coincidentally, the person below me is a moron. "Pretentious" doesn't mean anything. Judge a work based on its own merits.

    18 Nov 2010 Reply
  • cutedeadgal

    pretentious song

    2 Nov 2010 Reply
  • micahnewman

    Listening to their lyrics, especially this one, makes me feel like I'm listening to a character from _Waking Life_. 'swonderful.

    8 Jun 2010 Reply
  • fatwang

    Mucho Like! I must learn the words to this song so I can sing along, when I'm wearing headphones, walking down the busy street.

    27 May 2010 Reply
  • closedmouth

    "It's like The Dismemberment Plan meets Fleet Foxes meets Aphex Twin" i hate you so much

    9 May 2010 Reply
  • lone_starr

    expectation.... leads to disappointment

    26 Apr 2010 Reply
  • Illegalbeth

    This is one of my all time favorite songs. They perfectly pinned down a beautifully painful, forlorn and lonesome feeling I've had so many moments. No time. No space. Only an eternal existence of the soul no part can reach, except this beautiful "Smells like Content" gemutlichkeit! "When in reality, it's never needed folds..."

    5 Feb 2010 Reply
  • Denizen-Red

    this this this this this this song.

    30 Jan 2010 Reply
  • pah-vol

    Caw...

    6 Jan 2010 Reply
  • filtrini

    Lyrics.... Space....Construction.... Very goooood

    5 Nov 2009 Reply
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