Fuzzy Logic In The Crazy Rain

Bright Eyes is a band that has a habit of changing my life.



Today I was listening to my entire Bright Eyes library.
A song came on that I didn't recognize but thought nothing of it.
I was reading at the time and something told me to stop and listen to this song.

Out of nowhere, I started crying. I looked at the name and it read
If The Brakeman Turns My Way

I started it over and listened to the words instead of just hearing it.

When panic grips your body
And your heart's a hummingbird
Raven thoughts blacken your mind
'Til you're breathing in reverse
All your friends and sedatives mean well
But make it worse
Every reassurance just magnifies the doubt
Better find yourself a place to level out

Got a cricket for a conscience
Always looks the other way
A cocaine soul starts seeming like
An empty cabaret
Hey, where have all the dancers gone?
Now the music doesn't play
Tried to listen to the river
But you couldn't shut your mouth
Better take a little time to level out

I never thought of running
My feet just led the way

Mixed-up signals
Bullet train
Cars are switched out in the crazy rain
I could meet you any place
If the brakeman turns my way

All this automatic writing
I have tried to understand
From a psychedelic angel
Who was tugging on my hand
It's an infinite coincidence
But it doesn't form a plan
So I'm headed for New England
Or the Paris of the South
Gonna find myself somewhere to level out

Are your brothels full, oh Babylon
With merry middlemen?
Never peer out of their periscopes
From those deep opium dens
All this death must need a counterweight
Always someone born again
First a mother bathes her child
Then the other way around
The scales always find a way to level out

I tried to pass for nothing
But my dreams gave me away

Mixed-up signals
Bullet train
People snuffed out in the brutal rain
I could live to any age
If the brakeman turns my way

It is an old world, it's hard to remember
Like a dime store mystery
I'm a repeat first-time offender
Who has rewritten history

Mixed-up tea leaves
Phantom pain
Fuzzy logic in the the crazy rain
Getting better every day
If the brakeman turns my way

Mixed-up signals
Bullet train
Cars are switched out in the blinding rain
He'll be smiling as he seals my fate
When the brakeman turns my way



Conor Oberst makes reference to cocaine addiction in a lot of his writings. This song is no different.
But, since I have no experience with cocaine or cocaine addiction, I don't hear it.

Conor speaks to me in a different way. Somehow, he can say the exact words that I can completely hear and it can crawl under my skin and bury itself in every fiber of my existence.



I could go through line for line and tell you how it affected me, but I am not going to. I have tried to do it for myself and I can't.

All I can say is that for the past few days I have been rethinking every single action I have done for the past several months. I'm a person that doesn't like to live in regret, but lately regret is all I can feel.



I don't know how, but If The Brakeman Turns My Way brought it to the light and made me face it.

I would not say anything has gotten easier...it actually might be worse now...but admitting you have a problem is the first step, right?

I know I have some unresolved feelings and problems that I have to deal with.