I haven't been this manic since
   I thought that she'd left me
       he said
 the dialog not scripted,
   the moment passes with him shattering there
  on the stage - such bliss of perfection in honesty:
  Don't read to me lies they've concocted
           to explain away the manic moods of a clown
     Don't expect me to say those lies in a crowded room like the 
        evening news.
   Don't tell me how to live my life but
         yes, help me if I've fallen down.

  But he hadn't fallen.
    He'd had a bad night.
 He was the same guy that they loved from before
     except that they didn't 
       love him anymore.

  How quickly they want to kill the clown
   when he shows them a mirror
    so they can imagine him to be
  whoever it is that they want to see.

  If I listen to you
     then I won't be doing my own thing.
  it distracts me.

  If I don't listen to you
       then what is the point of trying
    to write something
      that you'd want to read?

  I stand on the hill with my Frequency Modulated brain
    tuned in to the winds of the wet Springtime
   up on a hilltop in a gale.

  Is that the moon
     coming from behind the buildings?
  Is that the jestor
      crying?

  do you think that a man
     when his kids are taken away
   and he isn't getting his pay
  is off and when he says
        that it isn't the biz
  of the crowd who watches 
     on their televisions
   won't go out
      for a night on the town.
  Don't know
    any working girls
  if if they don't 
   buy the product.

   Is that the moon?

  Do you love
    what he brings?
  when he sings?
   when he moves and walks that way
   and spouts out
     the bland cleche?

  Can't a clown
   have a manic
      moment
  in a panic
   on the run
 from the realization
   that he isn't fooling anyone
       The Fool.

  Don't you love him anyway
    when he trips upon the stage
      and tells you 
    that hard work pays?
  He worked his first working years
     in a drug induced daze
  and we all paid to see him.
   Some folks even wished
     that they could be him.
 stick it in a mueseum.

  A clown can chase the crack rock
    as it rolls off the table in a wind
       that just kicked in
  really it's just from the wind machine.
    I  really wouldn't want to be him.
  Its the scene from a movie
    about envy and dispair
   when you find that no one's there
 who you don't have to pay
  and you've got nothing left to say
  and Hollywood 
     wants to throw you away.

  It's a movie.  It's a movie
  It's a top rated show.
   Travel around the world
   and then tell me where you go
     If you are so alone
   what is it you know.

  I really am not manic
    in public
  on purpose.