Simply Spalding Gray - Steve Forbert

Strange Names and New Sensations

Simply Spalding Gray

You’ve gone it seems to great extremes

To tell the tales you tell,

You’ve lived 'em all, both great and small

And so you tell them well;

Swimming to Cambodia, Monster in a Box,

This dude just flippin' sits there

And they film him while he talks;

There aint no sex or violence

(Might not float your boat),

A water glass, a table

and a page or two of notes.

Bye-bye, just a wave if you will,

Bye-bye, we’ll be standing here still.

Your mother died a suicide,

So odds were up, they say,

That you would see things comp’rably

And end it all some day;

A monologing diarist

Makes his life his art,

Offstage walks a tightwire

And might fall apart;

Motor crash in Ireland

(Bad blow to the head)

Modified his madness

And darkened things he said.

Bye-bye, just a wave if you will,

Bye-bye, we’ll be standing here still.

We’ll be standing here while the future breaks against us

Like the waves against a buoy in the bay;

We’ll be standing here or is time a magic carpet

That we’re riding on to move from day to day?

Riding on to move from day to day?

You’ve gone it seems to great extremes

to tell the tales you tell,

But ev’rything’s extreme, it seems,

To you, so what the hell?

Swimming to Cambodia, Monster in a Box,

This dude just flippin' sits there

And they film him while he talks;

People pay to watch it

As if it were a play;

It aint exactly acting,

It’s simply Spalding Gray.

Bye-bye, just a wave if you will,

Bye-bye, we’ll be standing here still;

Bye-bye, just a wave if you will,

Bye-bye, we’ll be standing here still.