Shelved

Shelved
	;
Album	Goths
Released	May 19, 2017
Length	4:01
Previous Track	"Rage of Travers"
Next Track	"For the Portuguese Goth Metal Bands"

Shelved is the 10th song on the album Goths. It also appears as the 15th song on the 2021 live album The Jordan Lake Sessions: Volumes 3 and 4. Bassist Peter Hughes wrote and sang the last verse of the song.

Lyrics[]

I wanna ride the hydraulics
Lit up like the North Star
I wanna wallow in the spoils before the crowd
I wanna play my guitar
Not gonna sit up and beg
Not gonna do tricks
Not gonna stand here on a sound stage
Tethered to a crucifix

The ride's over, I know
But I'm not ready to go

I wanna flash my pastel colors by the rail
On a windy day at Pimlico
Don't want to write songs with this clown they set me up with in a Los Angeles 
rehearsal studio
Not gonna tour with Trent Reznor
Third of three, bottom of the bill
You can't pay me to make that kind of music
Not gonna swallow that pill

The ride's over, I know
But I'm not ready to go

Maybe Dad is right
I'm still young
And I can write C++ just as good as anyone
I know this guy at LucasArts
He says they're looking for hands
In fifteen years I'll be puttin' back beers
With my feet in the sand

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]

"Anyway, this is a song about a band that's being encouraged to maybe change with the times a little bit, they're not really feeling it. When you make an album and they refuse to release it, they say that the album has been shelved. This is called 'Shelved'." -- 2017-05-25 - Saturn - Birmingham, AL
"This song, this one is about a band, right, and they make a record, but it doesn't get released because trends have changed. And, like, and they get told to change the record, and then they're like, well no, but that's our dream and our vision, and the guys say, 'No one in the entire civilized world gives a fuck about your dream or vision, right. We, we, we gave you a $250,000 advance and we intend to recoup it or die trying.' And then so they're not a band anymore after that, they go get jobs. And then later they talk about when they were a band. But the album gets put on the shelf. In the record business, that's called being 'shelved', and that's the name of the song." -- 2017-11-11 - Union Transfer - Philadelphia, PA