The President's Dead - Okkervil River

The president’s dead, the radio said,

Dear friends, is it not so horrible?

A shot through my heart, like a knife right through bread,

The newspaper said the president’s dead.

The sea doesn’t dry and the sky isn’t split,

But friends it just seems so wrong, don’t it?

A shot from the crowd, and a shot in the head,

The president’s lying on the tarmac dead.

He’s lying face down with his black-dressed agents

Guns drawn running around and the early Obit’s

Say he was a good man, you can’t argue with that

Not today you can’t, not now you can’t.

In the media tent where they spin and they slant,

They just foam the mouth and they chant at the bit,

Those bloodsuckers can wait until those vulture’s cool in,

The newscaster said, «The President’s dead.»

Let’s imagine the way, let’s say 30 years in,

How somebody will say, «What you were doing when???»

On a beautiful day, I was waking up and

I was lying in bed with my girlfriend

And the eggs on the plate, and the bacon hissin'

And the coffee was great, there was spring on the wind.

If you don’t live through a day for the littlest things,

And the littlest ways made you feel you were blessed

If you died right then, well you know you’d be missed,

But there’s no better state to cease to exist

And you wouldn’t feel sad, and you wouldn’t resist

Cause you knew what you had, and were thankful for it

In your own little way, I’m a small quiet man

I’ve got no wars to win, I don’t have a big plan

But I love my new place, and I love my old friends

And I scrimp and I save, and one day I’ll have kids.

I can truthfully say that my day was like that,

'Til the radio playing on the stand by the bed

Fired out this report and in 3 words they said,

Like three shots to my head,

«The President’s Dead.»