This is a weird one that’s something of an experiment - where I can’t figure out whether to call it final or scrap it all together. Can’t say it’s my favorite, and can’t quite hit delete…so here it is. With a name like “Knucklehead Ballet” it automatically feels…odd.
I envision this one as a 3/4 time with some carnival style background instrumentation.
The music in the background
sounds unfamiliar
Though it’s a song
I feel like I should know
There’s spinning and dancing
And fussing and prancing
and I can’t help but laugh
At the silliness of it all
We could call it culture,
you could call it great art
An observational production
where everyone plays a part
It’s open casting, each day it’s someone new
A show every morning, sometimes several by noon
Such a long standing run, there’s shows every day
The foolishness and gymnastics of the knucklehead ballet
The knucklehead ballet
In the theater of life
Every moment of folly
We’re watching it live
And some hope, and some think
And some never learn,
Oh the moments we’d take back
If we could see them the way
They come across
in the knucklehead ballet
Every day the theater’s open
to all who would come
you’d be surprised
at the wide casting call,
And all the corners they come from
People you might know, up on the stage
Painted and costumed and put on display
Shouting or barking or making a scene
Swaying and moving and causing a fuss
Aren’t you just glad it ain’t’ one of us
It seems all so proper until viewed from afar
Yet somehow the blind spot looms rather large
There’s cracks in the makeup
and the tone makes you cringe
The lines aren’t quite right
and something seems somewhat unhinged
What occurs on the stage
in the knucklehead ballet
The knucklehead ballet
In the theater of life
Every moment of weakness
We’re watching it live
And some hope, and some think
And some never learn,
Oh the moments we’d take back
If we could see them the way
They come across
in the knucklehead ballet
Oh, You could tell by the posture
that this one should be good
They’re winding up to something
wiser folks never would
They’re about to break out,
about to make this scene
And It’s easy to say
Just how foolish they’ve been
Seeing just how it looks
out here once again
But the actors here
They just can’t see the turn
The way each of their lines
will come back to burn
And by the time they’re all done
They’ll wish they’d never been,
The act on display
at the knucklehead ballet.
Oh such a surprise,
I can’t believe what I see,
When the actor in the looking glass,
Looks an awful lot like me.
it’s easy to think its all someone else
But even in the image’s distorted reflection
I see myself
Looking in the mirror
at tonight’s headlining star
I can’t help but be reminded,
some days the knucklehead is me.
