Don Julian from Prisms & Math by Prisms & Math

Passing Don Julian Elementary on the first day of school
In the hottest August anybody here remembers
Drive each morning through this valley, past the strip clubs and the landfill
As the longest summer of our lives dragged on toward September
You, weighed down by nascent life and I, by crushing expectations
Of performance that could live up to a gaudy résumé
Sitting at a stop sign, I breathe in the scent of oleander
Mixed with the diesel exhaust that takes an hour off my life each day

Ancient bougainvillea cascades over rusty chain link fences
That aren't too much of a barrier to the local chickens today
Now here comes the old vaquero with his tight jeans and sombrero
Rides a brown horse down 4th Avenue every morning that I come this way
Tonsured men with tattooed biceps hold the hands of six-year-old girls
Wearing blue Queen Elsa backpacks carefully packed for this day
One day soon, I'll be one of them--maybe with a little less ink--
Then before I know it, I'll be seeing her off to make her own way

Mark the passage of time by the strip club billboards by the freeway
Monarchs, Synn, and Spearmint Rhino: gaudy sirens at the roadside
Springtime brought hopes of transcending all my fuckup inclinations
And a richer, happier life here where we can spread our wings wide
But the summer showed us that I'll never stop failing you and my
Self in every way that matters 'til we've reached the end of days
Guess that we'll just have to muddle--take it one long day at a time
That's what I tell myself as I drive on through the California haze

Passing Don Julian Elementary on the first day of school
In the hottest August anybody here remembers

• Rock
• indie pop
• indie rock
• post-post-punk
• post-post-rock
• yuppie Lou Reed
• Corona