Confusion
Status
Elliott Smith song
Alternative Title/Version
I Live in a Cage
Written By
Elliott Smith
Recording Sessions
2000 (Unknown location - LP6 Early Recordings) - uncirculating
January-April 2001 (Two Beers & Everybody Sings; Chateau Brion - Los Angeles, CA - Brion Sessions) - uncirculating
Availability of Official Release
N/A
Lyrics
transcribed from live performances in 2000
Obvious (??) you got nowhere special to go
But I know you will before too long
Always there, standing there
Staring at the hole in the road
Like it was a place somebody would go
Confusion is king the talk of your town
With the Hollywood design, knowing everyone
Would you cover mine?
You spoke softer than anybody I ever heard
Softer than the velvet in your hair
Tying back black while you laugh at me (alt: mocking me), black as a bird
Tying back black while you laugh at me (alt: mocking me), black as a bird
I live in a cage, and I could take you there
Confusion is king, the talk of your town
Streets, I’m living with the pain
This is what you see always looking down
Hanging out, better off? Can’t tell how to behave
With her on the stage I hear your song (alt: are you upset?)
With the animals painted in the dark on the walls of the cage
Pictures of the ones I guess you won’t forget (alt: Pictures that I wish I just forget)
Confusion is king the talk of my town
I don’t know if you hear the meaning of the word
Maybe just yourself?
Little things trigger big problems (alt: big bombs)
You can wipe out a stain
And maybe I destroy what makes you sad
If you’re rid of so many minds
Buried that you never relay
Until your body’s numb and it’s all too bad
Confusion is king the talk of the town
I don’t know how to speak it
I don’t know how to help you
I’ll just be around
I don’t know how to speak
I don’t know how to help
I’ll just be around
Note
In the psychobiography on Elliott entitled Torment Saint, the author William Todd Schultz noted that there were numerous lyrical versions of this song. The version recorded with Brion appears to have different lyrics than what was publicly performed on the Figure 8 tour.
First Live Performance
2000-05-05 (Trees, Dallas, TX)
Audio
(taken from a performance on 5/10/00 at the Ritz in Raleigh, NC)