to you (unfinished, off the top of my head)

It all started with some friends and a van
a kick drum inside my ribs
Preaching electric into a microphone stand
Raise your red plastic cup
And Turn the laughter up
We fell asleep in the grass on the summer fest days
You’d never guess I’m still trying to get my head screwed on straight
All us believers still believe
Everytime we sing “two more weeks”
Someone shoulda thrown us in a cell and swallowed the key
Somebody shoulda told us to leave em be
The only news we tuned in to was the traffic update
Nothing feels as close to home as nightime windows down on 88
Lax to berlin and back
Wake up on the west coast inside a flask
The good books in the drawer next to the bed you pissed in
passports a blur, full of stamps from places I missed you in
They’ll tell you everything about last night that you forget
Pack your suitcase, joes in the back smoking a jazz cigarette
They hated me before they ever loved me
I’m not ready for things to change
I miss you missing me in the good old days
Got stuck in the cell of you and me
I guess it still beat solitary
——-Worry worry
Put my head in such a flurry
Freckle freckle
What makes you so special———-
One of these days yr gonna wake up in heaven
Laugh about that night you got four stitches above your eye
when they let the guitars fly
Never trust a band that wouldn’t bleed for you
Never believe in anyone who wouldn’t drive through the night
(To you)
They never tell you in school you’ll feel so alone
Wake me up again when were in the same time zone
The way I’d take a cornfield over a coast
Mulitply me times what you adore most
There were nights between yellow lines
When I confessed to you riding shotgun asleep under purple skies
They say
You get what you get
Well we Got lost in the middle of nowhere And you almost quit
Tonight Come together
Come apart
You can get lonely when u
Only read the charts
Called everybody I knew in this life
Can we get it together just for tonite

I miss old friends and “play it agains”
Please Send my love,
to everyone above

Pete posted the above to one of his secret blogspots (deleted long ago) on August 13, 2008. This has always been my favorite. A few things:

• This was posted just before the release of Folie A Deux was announced, while the band was still working on the album, and was titled “to you (unfinished, off the top of my head)” (the you presumably being Patrick who was using the words for lyrics **I’m going to edit myself here and add that it can also be a broader “you,” meaning the fans). You’ll see a lot of lines from Coffee’s For Closers in here and the chorus from w.a.m.s
• During the Save Rock and Roll record cycle, Patrick mentioned revisiting some of Pete’s older lyrics and finding some that he had initially dismissed for dumb reasons like being irritated with Pete over something else.
• Cut to American Beauty/American Psycho and you can a slightly modified version of the line “When I confessed  to you riding shotgun asleep under purple skies” has made it into “Favorite Record,” along with references to “windows down,” “drive through the night,” and “play it agains.”
• There are a lot of references in here to the band’s connection with/devotion to the fans—”All us believers still believe every time we sing ‘two more weeks’,” “Never trust a band that wouldn’t bleed for you, Never believe in anyone who wouldn’t drive through the night (To you)”
  
• In this interview, Pete mentions “Favorite Record” was the song that almost didn’t make it on to AB/AP but that it won out because it felt like a song that was for the fans.

(via stumpomatic)