Old typewriter keys tumbled from my fingers
Like Scrooge McDuck letting gold coins fall back into his vault hoard
Making random words on the way down
Or at least the illusion of such
If an image could be snatched from every angle at every synchronous second
W-H-Y-Shift-?
That's a big question
One that I'd be happy to make up an answer to
Just like millions of charlatans before me
But I just don't have it in me anymore
As you should know
W-H-E-R-E-Shift-?
That one is easier for sure
Because the where is right here
Amidst this hoarder's wet dream of typewriter parts
All stowed in military surplus bins and Folgers coffee cans
And not the coffee cans that are foisted upon us these days either
But proper metal ones in both blue and black
With added patina scratched into them
Garnished with just he right amount of rust and coffee smell
W-H-O-Shift-?
As much as I wish it could be someone else
It really has to be me who sifts through all this mess
With enough on hand to repair one hundred Royal Silent Specials
And several crates of factory new body shells for Remington Rocket Typesets
Some roller rubber sleeves and cotton cloth bags of molded feet
Along with restoration decals for brands I'd never heard of
In materials so old they turned to gold and white dust at the touch of my fingertip
I cannot escape the fact that this should have been you doing this
Just like your father before you and his father before him
Which was exactly why we had such a multi-generational pile of things here
Bowing the shelves and buckling the walls with their weight
W-H-A-T-Shift-?
And that is the question of the day now isn't it?
What to do with this glorious cornucopia of outdated office technology
In this age of Retina smart screens and voice to text artificial intelligence
For in this city of dreams that never should have been dreamt to begin with
The gutters still needed to be cleaned when those dreams failed
Lovers needed each other
And jealousy needed its green like the emperor needed new clothes
Under these broken lights I'll hang up my hat and fix typewriters for awhile
The work table seems to be the right height
The chair looks just the right amount of broken in for me
Perhaps even the customers will come
If I only turn on the OPEN neon sign for a spell
I wasn't a very good private dick anyways
The noir always got to me in the end
Like Scrooge McDuck letting gold coins fall back into his vault hoard
Making random words on the way down
Or at least the illusion of such
If an image could be snatched from every angle at every synchronous second
W-H-Y-Shift-?
That's a big question
One that I'd be happy to make up an answer to
Just like millions of charlatans before me
But I just don't have it in me anymore
As you should know
W-H-E-R-E-Shift-?
That one is easier for sure
Because the where is right here
Amidst this hoarder's wet dream of typewriter parts
All stowed in military surplus bins and Folgers coffee cans
And not the coffee cans that are foisted upon us these days either
But proper metal ones in both blue and black
With added patina scratched into them
Garnished with just he right amount of rust and coffee smell
W-H-O-Shift-?
As much as I wish it could be someone else
It really has to be me who sifts through all this mess
With enough on hand to repair one hundred Royal Silent Specials
And several crates of factory new body shells for Remington Rocket Typesets
Some roller rubber sleeves and cotton cloth bags of molded feet
Along with restoration decals for brands I'd never heard of
In materials so old they turned to gold and white dust at the touch of my fingertip
I cannot escape the fact that this should have been you doing this
Just like your father before you and his father before him
Which was exactly why we had such a multi-generational pile of things here
Bowing the shelves and buckling the walls with their weight
W-H-A-T-Shift-?
And that is the question of the day now isn't it?
What to do with this glorious cornucopia of outdated office technology
In this age of Retina smart screens and voice to text artificial intelligence
For in this city of dreams that never should have been dreamt to begin with
The gutters still needed to be cleaned when those dreams failed
Lovers needed each other
And jealousy needed its green like the emperor needed new clothes
Under these broken lights I'll hang up my hat and fix typewriters for awhile
The work table seems to be the right height
The chair looks just the right amount of broken in for me
Perhaps even the customers will come
If I only turn on the OPEN neon sign for a spell
I wasn't a very good private dick anyways
The noir always got to me in the end
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