Cotton Crush
Kevin Devine Lyrics

The bricks get laid,
Buildings and structures are built and then inevitably destroyed or dismantled, only to be rebuilt again.

And they get torn up,
These buildings and structures are eventually destroyed, demolished or pulled apart.

And laid again,
Despite the inevitable destruction of these buildings, they are immediately rebuilt at the earliest convenience.

But the bricks always get torn up again.
Destruction is inevitable, and attempts to rebuild are temporary.

Your friends won't wait,
Do not rely on the assumption that your supposed 'friends' will be there waiting for you.

So don't believe that shit,
Refuse to be misled or taken in by those who claim they will wait for you.

When they say they'll wait.
Do not trust anyone who makes promises or claims that do not seem reasonable or trustworthy.

Trust me; your friends will not wait for you.
The only one you can trust in this situation is yourself and your own resilience.

Then you'll be stoned in some park,
If you do not take heed of the message being given, you will be negatively impacted and find yourself wallowing or languishing in some undesirable location.

Just nodding your head and pinching your arms,
You will be so disillusioned or disorientated that you cannot even work out whether or not you are dreaming.

When a girl walks along.
At the point of total disillusionment or despair, you will encounter a girl.

She's humming your song,
She has some kind of vested interest in you and is familiar with aspects of your personality or life story.

With your t-shirt on.
She is wearing an item of your clothing.

That's when you're done,
This is the point of no return. You have lost control of the situation.

Oh, that's when you're done.
The finality of the situation is emphasized here.

There's a cotton crush
There is a trend or phenomenon occurring in the southern states involving cotton.

Down in the southern states.
This is a regional trend specific to the southern states.

But back up here, man, we've got
In contrast, there is something different in the location that the singer is currently in.

So much thread and space
There is an abundance of materials and resources available in this location.

To waste, waste, waste.
These resources are being squandered or frittered away needlessly.

There's a microphone
We are under constant surveillance or scrutiny.

Picking every word up
This surveillance is recording or registering every detail of our lives, both public and private.

And it shuts itself off
The generator of this surveillance or scrutiny will stop at a certain point, only when it has had enough.

When it's sure that's its heard enough.
Nothing more needs to be observed, recorded, or analyzed because all that needs to be known has been captured.

The quiet can scrape
Silence or serenity can sometimes be too difficult to bear.

All the calm from your bones,
Too much peace and quiet can be unnerving or distressing.

But maybe it should.
This unnerving feeling could be seen as a positive thing, one that encourages people to take action.

Maybe we need to be hollowed
Perhaps in order to grow or to move forward, we must first be reduced to nothing.

To get up and grow,
Only when we are nothing, are we truly able to grow and develop.

And stop fucking around,
We must stop dallying and become more focused on our goals.

To kick off our braces and start straightening out.
We must shake off our inhibitions, stand up tall, and start on the road to self-improvement.

Let's sift through the static
It's time to rid ourselves of all the things that are holding us back or are clouding our thoughts.

To find a simpler sound
We need to distill everything to its simplest form in order to make sense of it.

Simpler sound than the shit that's clouding our heads now.
The complexity of the current situation is too much to bear and needs to be ruthlessly stripped away to reveal something more simple and honest.