Ghost Town Radio

There's a station in my head that never once goes off the air,

plays the same six sentences from people who aren't there,

one of them is dead now and he still gets airtime daily,

prime slot, right at three in the morning, talking to me.

"You'll never," and "you always," and "who exactly do you think you are" —

old material, been running since before I could drive a car.

And I used to think that switching off meant proving it was wrong.

It doesn't. You just stop treating the broadcast as the news.

Ghost town radio. (radio... radio...)

Nobody's in the building.

Ghost town radio. (radio... radio...)

Transmitter's been abandoned for years —

tape's just running on its own.

I hear it. I don't answer.

Ghost town radio. (radio... radio...)

Now I clock it when it starts, that's the trick that took the longest:

"that's not my voice, that's the tape, and the tape is very old."

Doesn't stop it playing. Never claimed that it would.

Just puts a little air between the speaker and my blood.

And some days I'm sloppy and I sing along by accident,

catch myself repeating it in the mirror, word for word, and that's alright,

you don't get points for perfect, you get points for noticing —

noticing's the whole discipline. The rest is just time.

Ghost town radio. (radio... radio...)

Same six lines on rotation.

Ghost town radio. (radio... radio...)

Playing to an empty street —

and I'm not the street anymore.

I hear it. I don't answer.

Ghost town radio. (radio... radio...)

Tape's old... tape's old... tape's old...

"...who exactly do you..."

Ghost town radio. (radio... radio...)

Nobody's in the building —

so I stopped writing letters to it,

stopped arguing with a signal,

and I put my own voice on the air,

and it's boring, and it's kind, and it's mine.

Ghost town radio. (fading... fading...)