Songtext The red phone Aesop Rock

The red phone

Just a little somethin'

The study isn't peer-reviewed, it's one peer-less
Student getting weird in a room
Putting the human condition through a series of wretched labors
A Herculean dozen to plug in your emulator
Updated for home version-ers, who board up in they teepee
Treating personal misfortune as horses of Diomedes
Me? I'm up to my neck in Nemean lions
A pride of idea-eaters, plus, weevils in the rice thins
Own worst, snubbin' upper management
I'm managing a thin skin, the coveralls are pangolin
Slang from the valley of calculated endangerment
Danger conservationist, constantly in the way of shit
Came in like a wrecking ball
But really only maintain thanks to the five second rule
Vortex staring back from the reflecting pool
They trying to separate the Jekyll, via centrifuge

Presto, keeper of the keys, I been keyed into the tempo
I can see a team leader reaching for the red phone
I can tell you who won't even be at the crescendo
XO, change-o
Day of hail storms, ricocheting off the rain coat
I can see your trail guide waiting for the payphone
I can tell you who won't even make it to the late show
Presto change-o
Presto

Just a little somethin'
Just a little somethin'

Little fragments of what happens when you plug-in
After having been unplugged, it feels emphatically disgusting
Just a little somethin'
Little "Pardon, can I borrow a lighter?"
Cuing a little flashing back to the apartment on fire
Just a little somethin'
Little surgeries and docu-series murderers
And run-ins with the concept of object permanence
Just a little somethin'
Little get the cake, little celebrate
Then celebrate again when you give it the hell away
Brain on black smoke, belly on the breed of lamb
That couldn't leap the sleepy fence, and fell in his Harina P.A.N.
It's me, you fucking dummies, I forgot the code word
Old dog, dogs continue to eat his homework, what?
I seen y'all, job sucks, picked last
No rhythm, not tough, wack shoes, shitty tats
Stupid life, stupid face, bad hair, sitting duck
Dead alive, set the high score on who gives a fuck?
I been several seasons with the cheetahs in the tall grass
To me it's all an impala with no hall pass
All that balderdash, all these talking heads
Futzing with the public good, hawking hate and spawning eggs
Then they wonder why the kid is swinging from the chandelier
Body painted safety orange, screaming out, "The champ is here"
As if it's not a healthy response
To whatever type of zealotry you presently on, wrong

Presto, keeper of the keys, I been keyed into the tempo
I can see a team leader, reaching for the red phone
I can tell you who won't even be at the crescendo
XO, change-o
Day of hail storms, ricocheting off the rain coat
I can see your trail guide, waiting for the payphone
I can tell you who won't even make it to the late show
Presto change-o

Pitching for the Pigeon Hill Road Molly-whoppers
In a first to a million or model for jolly roger
It's bad news in casual clodhoppers
I hop over cops and robbers and godfathers
Stark white knuckles on the wheel Jesus never took
Unless he needed me embedded in some lingonberry bush
Off the 495, otherwise, I blame it on the fire and ices
Fifty years of fighting for his pilot light
It doesn't take the keenest of empaths
To know you probably feeling irretrievably dead last
A steadfast emptiness, maybe aggressive idling
Maybe a forehead to horn, engine off entirely
Every offed head grows back multiplied
The secret is you close the cut and cauterize
Eye of the pyromancer
Here to ride the realest lightning through the driest diorama, like

Presto, keeper of the keys, I been keyed into the tempo
I can see a team leader, reaching for the red phone
I can tell you who won't even be at the crescendo
XO, change-o
Day of hail storms, ricocheting off the rain coat
I can see your trail guide waiting for the payphone
I can tell you who won't even make it to the late show
Presto change-o