The Fading Of An Old World

Studio CD: SA
Other: Andrew Bird's Live From The Great Room
Live Bootleg: Unitarian Church Basement, Cat's Cradle, Lancaster
SA

Lyrics

Well the old world is fading fast
The old world is can't last
We say good bye to the old fading old world

I don't wanna go back to the old world
I don't wanna go back to a fading old world

I say bye bye old world!
We can't go back to ???
We can't go back to palm fedora and cumber-bun
We can't go back to ???
We can't go back to palm fedora and cumber-bun

I don't want to go back to 1950
I don't want to go back to 1930
I don't want to go back to the rigid old world

We can't go back to ???
We can't go back to palm fedora and cumberbun
Goodbye to the rigid faded old world

Secretive older world
Secretive older world
Oh colors magnificent blue velveteen older world

???Blue velveteen

A cherry red
Velvet
Ancient
Oh colours older world

Say bye bye older world
Say bye bye older world
I say bye bye, bye bye older world

Andrew Bird's Live From The Great Room

Lyrics

[How about this?]

The old world is fading fast
??? Can't last
I say good bye to a fading older world

I don't wanna go back to the old world
I don't wanna go back to the fading older world
Older world

Can't go back
[Do the drone
In fact, don't make it ???
Make it the other one
Make it something hard
Yeah]

We can't go back to ???
We can't go back to palm fedora and cumber-bun
We can't go back to ???

[And I mean that half talk half sing now
Ok, then ???]

[???
Just pick a note and stick with it]

Yeah

Yeah
[Stick with it]

Well I don't want to go back to 1950
I don't want to go back to 1980
??? Fading older world

Yeah

[Give me one more drone
Pick a different one
Give me some, one more
A different dissonant than you picked that last time
Just try one]

Well I don't want to go back to 1980

[Stick with that, perfect]

I don't want to go back to the fading older world
And I don't want to go back to 1980
No more
I say, old world

Unitarian Church Basement

Lyrics

Well the old world is fading fast
The old world is almost dead
I say goodbye to a gigantic but fading old world

The ancient apartment house
Of bricks and mortar
Made in 1880
Well it's still there now
But it's surrounded now by
But just apartment blocks and new stuff

It's not in context anymore
It's not part of a neighbourhood no more
It's not part of an old world
It's just a faded remnant of an older world

Look folks
I don't want to go back to the old days
I don't want to go back to the old world
It had camaraderie and elegance
But I don't want to go back

With its gargoyles
And its ??? symbols
And love of secrecy and torture incidents

Not much argument from any corner I think

The old world had elegance
And camaraderie
I say goodbye
To a fading world

And I get sometimes nostalgic for the old things
But I don't want to go back to the old world
I say goodbye to the old world

I say bye bye old world

I say bye bye
Bye bye
To the old world

Cat's Cradle

Lyrics

[The old world is fading fast
The old world of arrogance
Christy Mathewson would show up for the baseball game in a cape
In 19 teens Douglas Fairbanks, the gallant ???
The cloistered, the stifling]

I don't want to go back to the arrogant fading dowager older world
The chandelier dowager elegant,
Saber and cutlass lead
Lead and mercury
Of mercury
Of elegance
Of the chandelier and the pompadour
And the cumberbund
I don't want to go back
To the fading older world
Of ???
I don't want to go back
To the fading fading older world

The old world is fading
The old world is fading
I don't want to return
To a faded older world

I don't want to go back to the 1880s
I don't want to go back to the 1830s
And the four masted schooner and the cats
The cape
The four mast
The wind
Savoury
And women not voting
And the fainting culture
Corset
And the pompadour
And the cumberbund

We can't go back to the fading elegant four masted schooner
Older world

The old world is fading
The old world is fading
The old world, we say goodbye to the fading old world
Say bye bye old world

I say bye bye old world
I don't want to go back to the old world
I don't want to go back to the old way
Dowager older world
Dowager older world
Dowager

Elegant older world
Elegant etiquette chivalry
Corsetry painting colours
Older world
Lead and mercury
Fainting colours and corsetry
I say goodbye
To the majestic occult world

Gargoyle and corsetry
Fainting colour
The cutlass
I say goodbye to the fading

I say bye bye old world

I say bye bye old world

Lancaster

Lyrics

Well the old world is fading fast
The old world is fading fast
I say good bye to a fading old world

Well the old world may be dead
Well there's remnants still everywhere
I say a good bye
To a fading old world

I don't wanna go back to 1880
I don't wanna go back to 1950
I don't wanna go back to 2005
No

???
???

May there be no dust on my mirror
May there be no dust on the mirror
Memory

I don't, I don't
Follow
I don't want to go back to the old way

But the old way is well again
With majesty
Canvas sales
And granite and lead and iron
The canvas and lead
Of the older world

I don't want to go back to 1730
I almost want, but I don't want to go back
To the grandeur
The camaraderie
The ???

The women had
If they weren't married
They could be hookers
But they could, you know what a spinster was?
It was a dirty word
Just a women who spun
That was sad because that meant she was independent of men
So a woman who spun
That meant sad because she all of a sudden
??? Spinster
That was no good
For guys cause
What about that
These women didn't need
To be controlled any more
That's no good

I don't want to go back to 12 or 13
I don't want to go back to 8
I don't want to go back to 18

I don't want to go back to the glorious 19 teens
Douglass Fairbanks
Charlie Chaplin
And the beautiful etiquette
Of those days
When at a baseball game
If someone hit a home run
They may tip the cap
They kept tip the cap
Maybe, and that's all they did
No smirking, no nothing

But I don't want to go back to 1913
Women could not vote
In 1913
Because they were considered
Sub human
They could still get books published
At the turn of the last century
On the subjects of whether women had souls
And there were a few racial problems

I don't even want to go back to 2013
I want this
That's why I can't sing memory song
I can't sing old songs unless I happen to feel something
Right that minute
I didn't come here to do no memory
Cause I don't want to go back
I like being 64
Once I was 19
I was very precocious and very intellectual
And that made me a depressing dour little 19 year old
I was older then

What's the sign say
Oh it's a gentlemen
??? He has a video screen
And he's asking me to do an ancient song
Very appropriate for this
Have you been listening at all sir?
I mean even a second of this
Speaking the English right?
???
I sing songs in other languages but this one is English

The old world
Say bye bye to the old world
I say bye bye old world
I say bye bye
Bye bye
Bye

Notes

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