Lapsed Catholic Songtext
von Will Sheff

Great big God′s sake –
is it really this late?
We have been here how many hours?
Tripping our memories
through the dimming grey.

Growing up, getting older,
getting beat to a pulp,
getting it through our heads we're happy,
getting to geek out on the morning sun –

fumbling our way past shame toward grace,
fumbling our way past shame toward grace.

I see you just the way you came on
when you first came to town,
there at the Tremont House of Pizza,
standing and sending several quarters down,

your dad in his polar fleece,
your mom, so handsome and fit –
boozing it up behind the chapel,
busting your ass down at the burger pit.


Nothing going to stay the same, it′s writ.
Everything will take you down with it.

You pick your fights,
and there are some races you won't get to run.
You ain't gonna barricade the pipeline
(even though that′s what Jesus would have done).

Kneeling in the kitchen hallway,
nothing left to reject,
tenderly humming to the shepherd,
wiping the blood from where he cut his neck.

You get in the letting-them-down business,
taking what you get, that′s it – no tip.

Stay alive to sit in traffic.
Pray, afraid, on the plane.
Hock out a loogie to the unknown.
live to exhale into the loving pain.

Still, I see my virgin warrior,
sword cleaving the night,
galloping down the holy mountain,
traveling righteous
through the rising light,


fumbling her way past shame towards grace.
Fumbling her way past shame towards grace.