a song to pass the time - bright eyes

There's a middle-aged woman, she is dragging her feet, she carries baskets of clothes to a laundromat. While the Mexican children kick rocks into the street, and they laugh in a language I don't understand. But I love them, why do I love them?
Now the neighborhood's dimming, I smoke on the porch, watch the people as they pass enclosed inside their cars. On their faces just anger or disappointment, I start wishing there was something I could offer them, a consolation, what could I offer them?
And they are sad in their suburbs, robots water the lawn. And everything they have touched gets dusted spotless. And so they start to believe they've not touched anything at all, and the cars in the driveway only multiply.
They are lost in their houses, I've heard them sing in the shower, making speeches to their sister on the telephone. Saying you come home, woman you come here, don't stay so far away from me. This weather has me wanting love more tangible. Something I can hold, because it's getting cold.
I say let's hold up our fists to the flame in the sky, to block out the light that's reaching for our eyes, cause it would blind us, yeah it will blind us.
Now I have locked my actions in the grooves of routine, so I may never be free of this apathy. But I wait for a letter that's coming to me, she sends me pictures of the ocean in an envelope. So there still is hope, yes I can be healed, there is someone looking for what I've concealed. In my secret drawer and my pockets deep, you will find the reasons that I can't sleep, and you will still want me, will you still want me? Will you still want me...
Well I said come for the week, you can sleep in my bed, and pass through my life like a dream through my head. It will, it will be easy. I'll make it easy. But all I have for the moment is a song to pass the time, a melody to keep me from worrying. Some simple progression to keep my fingers busy, and words that are sure to come back to me. And they'll be laughing, yeah they'll be laughing... my mediocrity. My mediocrity...