Song Description

"Paid By Weight" deals with betrayal and abandonment. The title alludes to Hamlet, referencing Laertes' words to Ophelia upon witnessing the state of delusion she has been reduced to: "O heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven times salt, Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye! By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight, Till our scale turn the beam." (Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5) The lyrics also draw on Laertes' lines prior to Ophelia's entrance in the scene: "To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms And, like the kind life-rendering pelican, Repast them with my blood." In a newspaper article covering the release of my album, the writer described this song as "a pointed warning, an almost-intimidating song about the selfish ways of some, and what those actions are doing to our environment." I would add that it also concerns what some people's selfish ways are doing to relationships and society.

Lyrics

Someday,
Maybe ten, maybe twenty years from now,
There will be a knock at your door.
There will be a man standing there with a clipboard.
And you will sign your name on the dotted line.
The man will hand over
A parcel bundled up in wool.
You will look down to consider it;
You will look up to say thanks,
And the man will be gone...

But a plaintive cry will draw your eyes
To a baby pelican
Sitting on your welcome mat,
And the pelican's eyes will dilate,
And the eyes of the trees will dilate,
And you will be a sea anemone:
You will contract upon this contact.

Will you feel small?
And will you feel scared?
And will you gasp for air
And find there's nothing there
But a fatal mistake?
Will you finally weigh what you have given
Against what
You take and you take and you take and you take.

Somehow,
You will think once again of the package in your hands
You will begin to tug at the wool.
It will come off easily in pieces,
But it will cut right through the prints upon your fingers and
It will pile up around you in a mountain of gauze
In a car on a hospital train,
Where the surgeons lack credentials
And the scalpels are just saws.

But a plaintive cry will draw your eyes
To a baby pelican
Sitting on your welcome mat,
And the pelican's eyes will dilate,
And the eyes of the trees will dilate,
And you will be a sea anemone:
You will contract upon this contact.

Will you open your arms
To the birds?
Will you open your arms
To the trees?
Will you repast them
With your own blood?
Will you finally give back
The breath that you take?
(and you take and you take and you take.
You take and you take and you take and you take.)

Somewhere,
Underneath the many years of stinging fibers,
You will find your gift.
Will you ever understand what it means?