Death Preferences

I was coming down at the Diamond Head DMV when the feeling awoke
I remember you in laughter, death preference flappin' in a bicycle spoke
I remember you in laughter, sincerity our final joke
Another screwball comedy afterlife
Another enemy turned to smoke
A data-mapping assistant, a tripper au pair
You spent a year in a lab-coat county on the paid end of a dare
Making receipts of all the rain-checks and misfortunes that you should bare
In case the world should ever audit you
For what is and isn’t fair
We used to talk with an accent
Just to feel like we were part of the team
Walking halos around Choctaw Mounds
Proud and obscene
Mississippi 1, Mississippi 2, ooh Mississippi streams
Roll past the garage bags
Of berries blue and black
And canisters of aerosol cream
Now Cuban leaves and a hundo for patrolling the dock
Did a year with a wrist-slap buddy just for trying the locks
Arthouse letters to the editor comin' back to me by the box
But the sculpture’s broken heart
Is but a product of unmagical thoughts
Mondrian primaries pulsing through a traphouse grid
I pull a page from the extermination calendar
And leave a note for the Terminex kid
Mississippi 1, Mississippi 2
Miss, you’re lucky you got away when you did
With death preferences
Death preferences
The choir is misfiring in loops
Singing «Death Preferences»
Ooh ooh ooh death preferences
It’s Saturday night, it’s Sunday morning
Everybody’s smoking weed in groups
Now the emperor naps wrapped in Ku Klux linens
I dressed and left so fast that
I think my shadow must have been confused for a minute
To be the cock-rock band criticized by the art-house superintendent
To see your room for the first time
To see a picture of me in it
And all my excuses for staying so long
Lie faced in a duffel
Grab your partner by his or her hand
And do the blood-font pharmacy shuffle
Another screwball comedy afterlife
Another enemy smoked in a brotherly scuffle
I still remember you in laughter
When the accent comes back just how we left it
Oh you know they say that death prefers you, Baby
When you least expect it
And the choir’s admired but the maestro is oh so disrespected
Not a dry seat in the house to be found
And not a dollar off domestics
Death preferences
Death preferences
The maestro is too tired to pull rank
Swingin' «Death Preferences»
Ooh ooh ooh death preferences
It’s Saturday night, it’s Sunday morning
Everybody’s parking at the bank
Mississippi 1, Mississippi 2
I miss you more than you think