Marlon Brando lyrics

You really were like James Dean, too
Every time you spoke, couldn’t take my eyes off you
At a bar you once read me Wittgenstein
And then we arm-wrestled
“You’re like an MSNBC lib,” you’d sneer at me
Every time I protested, you knew clearer than me
In a cab you once rattled off Schopenhauer
But we couldn’t take our eyes off each other

As a messiah of modernity
I was built to fall short of Jesus
My hatreds never pure enough
So one night I wrote Jacques a breakup letter
“I have the problems of Marlon Brando
I have the soul of a bleedin’-heart lib
With a chance, I’d put my money where my mouth is
But hold up
I’m also a hot guy who tempts excesses
My method’s the crux of my madnesses
I philosophize from a lap of advantages
I’m too blessed
Do you hear me?
I’m a blue mess”

You really were like James Dean, too
What came outta me, always slipped in through you
Afternoons we’d sip coffee and cigarettes
Then rummage through bed
“We’ll tattoo each other’s names on us”
You once said, drinkin’ Jack from a Phillies mug
Fallin’ in love, I wondered what it’d be like
To be as much as you
As a messiah of modernity
I was built to fall short of Jesus
Luck is our cosmic inevitability
So one night I wrote Jacques some Christ kisses
“I have the problems of Marlon Brando
I write poems like an End Times Shakespeare
With a chance, I’d put my money where my mouth is
But hold up
I’m dim about digital diamonds
My humanity’s the crux of my whinin’
I vibe Diogenes from a notebook at Starbucks
I’m too blessed
Do you hear me?
I’m a blue mess”

You really were like James Dean, too
What came outta me, always slipped in through you
But hold up
“I’m also a hot guy who thinks pragmatic
My method’s why I vibe so erratic
I write Whitman using litotes Socratic
I’m too blessed
Do you hear me?
I’m a Quaker mess”

I’m a quakin’ mass
I’m a Quaker mess
You don’t suppose it’d help
If I compared myself to Nicolas Cage?
You really were like James Dean, too
And I really am like
A darlin’ rando
You really were like James Dean, too
And I really am him
Marlon Brando