From the recording Other Songs
Lyrics
Erector set in pieces across a braided rug
Train tracks gone to nowhere, marbles in a truck
His blankets look like mountaintops and the knotholes in the door
Are planets in a galaxy that no one’s seen before
His comic book heroes alive on the shelf
The future is forever and ever in himself
“I wish you’d go outside to play” his mama intervenes
But no, he thinks he’d rather stay in a room full of dreams.
Out back behind the high school the second quarter ends
He could be watching football, laughing with his friends
But he’s playing on his own field, the cheers are in his head
He takes the ball off tackle and plunges into bed
And then without music they’ll dance till they drop
Imaginary girlfriend at a private junior hop
Someday he’ll really ask her but for the time it seems
It’s just another Friday night in a room full of dreams.
Life takes him that way, then this
Thirty years go by and there he is...
Sitting in a bedroom, trying to write a song
His wife calls up to tell him they really should be gone
The play is almost starting, the sitter has arrived
They show her where the food is, into the night they drive
And the lines make him laugh out loud and he asks himself why
He doesn’t take her out more and vows again he’ll try
He whispers that he’s glad they’re here, in between scenes
But she knows that he’d rather be in a room full of dreams