How I Left the Ministry | |
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Album |
Undercard |
Released |
2010 |
Artist |
The Extra Lens |
Length |
1:42 |
Previous Track |
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Next Track |
How I Left the Ministry is the sixth song on the album Undercard.
Lyrics[]
There was one thing I found that I couldn't help thinking As they pried me free with the jaws of life None of this disaster would ever have happened If I had not been driving my neighbor's wife To the Alta Loma Days Inn, where I'd registered us as A couple with a name I'm sure some other couple somewhere has And the last thing I saw before falling unconscious Was your right hand tracing a heart on my thigh And I thought my God what an infantile gesture And I thought my God what an indescribable high The autumn air was sweeter than a slice of wedding cake As I overshot the exit and I tried and failed to find the brake
Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]
"You guys know the story of When A Man Loves a Woman, right? Oh well, the story is almost doubtless false, but all stories are false, so...it's that Percy Sledge loses his woman, I'm not sure whether that means his wife or his girlfriend, the sources are unclear on this matter, but that, at any rate, the person with whom he was involved parts ways with him and, drowning in grief, he makes an appointment with the recording studio, but when he does so he shows up, and the band is playing, you know, your standard tonic minor and fourth vamp, and he improvises the lyrics to When a Man Loves a Woman, right, and it becomes a single that later will be used to try and convince you that if you don't spend two months salary on your wife you don't actually love her, but that part of it is tawdry, but the part where you imagine a young man, about 21, down in Georgia, which is where he's from, walking into a studio, and going 'When a man loves a woman', out of nothing, out of just his mind, oh that's a nice story, we should believe that story, we should believe it whether we know it to be false or not, right? This story is the other end of that story, and I'm afraid Franklin that I'm going to have to hold the lyric sheet close to my face to do it while you carry the chords, can you do that?" -- Video (unknown show)
Things Referenced in this Song[]
Live Shows this Song Was Played at[]
- 2002-07-24 - Sound & Fury In-Store - New York, NY
- 2002-12-07 - Amstel Festival - Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- 2003-03-14 - The Hideout - Austin, TX
- 2005-11-04 - Duke Coffeehouse - Durham, NC
- 2007-07-22 - Rhino Records - Claremont, CA
- 2010-10-19 - Tin Angel - Philadelphia, PA
- 2010-10-20 - Rock and Roll Hotel - Washington, D.C.
- 2010-10-21 - Mercury Lounge - New York, NY
- 2010-10-22 - KEXP Session - Ace Hotel - New York, NY
- 2010-10-23 - Iron Horse Music Hall - Northampton, MA
Videos of this Song[]
Undercard |
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Track list: "Adultery" • "Cruiserweights" • "Only Existing Footage" • "Communicating Doors" • "Programmed Cell Death" • "How I Left the Ministry" • "Some Other Way" • "Ambivalent Landscape Z" • "In Germany Before the War" • "Tug on the Line" • "Rockin' Rockin' Twilight of the Gods" • "Dogs of Clinic 17" |