We Need a Myth - Okkervil River

We need a myth

We need an amethyst bridge

We need a high hanging cliff

Jump, fall and lift

We can make it

But we need a myth

We need a path through the mist

Like in our beds, we were just kids

Like what was said by our parents

A myth

Guess what we’re after is just this

A myth

Guess what we’re after is just this

We need a myth

I feel my heart’s like a fist

Words spilling out of the blessed lips

Of any prophet or goddess

I need a myth

Brought back to life by a kiss

Scrape away grey cement

Show me the world as it was again

As it was in a myth

A red ribbon to reconnect

The lady’s head to her neck

And to forget that her throat was ever slit

Guess what we’re after is just this

It’s a myth

Guess what we’re after is just this

And I’m sick of all these picture books that try

To steal some old reflections for their light

But desperate measures point to desperate times

And that’s why

We need a myth

We’re cut adrift

We need a mass uplift

The world is trembling and weeping

Just at the point of believing

In a myth

The sun that shines on my head

The moon that lights me to bed

Were two identical twins

Inside of a myth

I heard the voice of a friend

On Lethe’s banks, wading in

And he said, «Before I forget»

We need a myth

As we lean in to kiss

To get two nails through the wrist

To get covered in blood

And to get covered in spit

And to forgive

And if all we’re taught is a trick

Why would this feeling persist?

And with the truth closing in

I must insist

We need a myth