(The) Harvey Danger Database

Tear down the bearing wall,
put up a picture window.¹
Something to look through
at the bastard colors, burnt sienna.²

Put down the wrecking ball.
Who has a friend, who needs one?
I’ve got a way to get to work in almost any city.
Doesn’t matter where:
take a needle, I won’t be there.
Privileges forsaken there.
Liberties I’ve taken take me nowhere.

Put down the wrecking ball.
Don’t let a childhood linger.
They’ll take the world apart
and break my baby brother’s finger
so he can’t shake my hand.
Guard the dead against my legacy
and lack the wound no more.
Run from nowhere, nowhere follows you.

Burn down the house.
Make sure the family is inside.
Nothing more to tether you,
also no one there to catch you crying.
Nothing but my famous pillow
and my father’s rocking chair:
you get a sliver when you sit there.
Every mess I make, I make
a run for nowhere, nowhere follows you.
Nowhere follows you…
Nowhere follows…

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1. I’ll tell you what to do. Tear down that bitch of a bearing wall, and put a window where it ought to be! — Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford, Mommie Dearest (1981). ↩

2. In theatre, a “bastard color” is one blended with small amounts of complementary color(s), often to appear more like natural light (e.g., bastard orange has undertones of blue). Burnt sienna, a reddish-brown pigment, would likely require such treatment to be reproduced with the additive color mixing of stage lighting. ↩