The Hold Steady
"Spectres"

projectionists and publicists, athletes and comedians
photographers and columnists, subscribers and enthusiasts
participants and spectators, the ragers and the clever kids
we're all actors and actresses

i want to thank you all for having me
a special thanks to the academy
for birthing me and blessing me
with this fantastic opportunity
to let the light shine down on me
now let us grieve for dead celebrities
we know them all from all the magazines

we photograph the carcasses, we hang them up on canvasses
we're all actors and actresses

maybe our anxiety
lives in the spaces in between
who we really are
and what we want to be
and the things that we let other people see
when all we really want
is to be in magazines

found dead on dirty mattresses, bleeding through the bandages
cops are surveying the damages and sending out for sandwiches
they photographed the carcasses and hang them up on canvasses
we're all actors and actresses

i guess we all got pretty close
i guess we all got pretty close
i guess we all got pretty close to the roles we chose to play
i guess we all got pretty close, i swear i saw him right by 7a

we see our friends six pages and right behind the president
(we're actors and we're actresses)
the office girls are awful with their take on what went wrong with him
(we're actors and we're actresses)
they're covering the carcass, they're bleeding and remembering
(we're actors and we're actresses)
we're all actors and actresses, we're all actors and actresses
(we're actors and we're actresses)