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shane koyczan - restaurant lyrics

(spoken)
i met a man who makes meals at a restaurant where there’s no menu
but everything’s on it
impossible, i know

but i met a man who makes meals at a restaurant called “death row”
i met a man who makes the last meals
and i know way too many people who would attack him, asking him how it feels to be part of something like that
so, instead, i just let him chew the fat and i listen

and he tells me about a 31-year-old boy
a 31-year-old boy because he was convicted at the age of 22 been waiting 9 years on death row, and last week was his turn so he asked for, sourdough french toast
and a side of magic beans
because he’d rather face down a giant
rather take his chances with a beanstalk, than walk down that hall where every footfall echoes into that same oblivion
where every experience he never had congregates
to create a world, he never lived in

so yeah, you find yourself asking for things, like magic beans, and a cook finds himself understanding what it means to be desperate

(sung)
take my clothing i don’t want it
all my money never had none, save your pity for the needy
never had it don’t need it now i’m gone

(spoken)
and he tells me that most of this food never gets touched
that doesn’t stop him from being exact
even though the fact is he’ll never make a meal as good as mom could
it’ll never taste as good as it would coming from the one who raised you, and he knows this but he’s meticulous
even though he knows that this 31-year-old boy grabbed his arresting officer’s service revolver tried to use it like a problem solver

he knows this, but he makes french toast with sourdough as though he was cooking for a king
because the last thing you should do is eat well, especially if there’s a family praying’ that you have to go slow when you take that walk-through h-ll

so, everything’s fresh
and the eggs are free-range
and there’s a last-minute change of pans
because the last hands to wash that pan missed a spot
and this cook got a vision of french toast that falls apart so softly it feels like lovers lying in bed breaking apart to sleep, so deeply the shallow of their dreams is enough for hate to drown in

because if you’re goanna come up short on a request like magic beans. you better be sure the first part of that meal means something

he tells me it’s a job
and as cliché as it sounds, someone’s gotta do it
tells me back in the day they used to let mothers try but most of them couldn’t get through it
so, a job was born out of necessity
and those struck by poverty didn’t have false visions of turning this work into their legacy, they didn’t dream of a dynasty were the mountains were made of chocolate or sugar stood in for sand
but they knew america would put a check in their hands, so men and women were born into workers, because ideas like right and wrong get outweighed by need, anytime you’ve got mouths to feed

he tells me that america failed
that they nailed freedom to a cross because every boss in every office, in his own separate world, having to be held up by the backs of employees expected to say “please” every time they have to take a p-ss

i know way too many people who would tell me that they can’t go on like this, and we say this, but we still set our alarms to be up in time for our 9 to 5
we’re just reporters coming to you live from bus stops and coffee shops

we wear our lives like costumes
use bills and coins like props in an over-budget production that we cannot seem to stop
so, it just goes on like this, as if we accept this
as if we’ve all become buddhas of m-ss production, our brains rotting like t–th under the sweet unending bliss of false enlightenment. and he tells me we used to be flint, and we’d spark whenever struck by new ideas but now all there is, is jobs. and someone’s gotta do them and isn’t he lucky that he lives in a country where everyone wants to be someone

(sung)
naked deep down, where you bury…my bones don’t want no company. i spend my lifetime in solitary
don’t scare me to be alone
(spoken)
and isn’t he lucky that when the day’s done, he can go home
and forget like he played this hand, knowing it was a bad bet
because what you risk reveals what you value

and this man ventured everything he knew, to the point where his wife can no longer convince him that her eyes are the colour blue
and what kind of life have you got left when you want no one to know what you do?

see, he lets everyone think that he’s just a cook because he doesn’t want his kids to know what daddy does and is unable to tell his mother where he was when they executed a 31-year-old boy, k!lling the first son of the same mother, he made the meal the man who took his brother, because he didn’t trust anyone who was willing to fill in for him that day, because they’d say things like “don’t worry” with just enough of a smile
if he ever stood trial trying to defend that meal all he’d ever feel is guilty

so, he made french toast with sourdough as though he was making a monument to his virtues, that would never be brought down by the half-truths of america

in truth? it never got touched and he tells me when the skeletons
in his closet finally bust down the door all he’s gonna need is his fist and someone’s jaw

says regret is like living your life as a blind man
having to imagine everything you lived, but never saw

he can’t imagine it any different than his mother at the execution, sitting in the front row, clear tears mixing with blush and eye shadow, sitting there, looking as though she’d been punched in the face by a rainbow
but he says, “i know i did the right thing”

and i’m not here to sing his praise, or raise a big deal made of granite and concrete, but america will never fall to its feet and say
“i’m sorry “, and all this is, is the story of a man, who makes meals
and how one day he made a testament to his ethics:
golden brown and stacked a perfect 5 inches high
tells me he feels bad for the boys on death row

he knows america failed them;
he says most of them still ask for apple pie

- shane koyczan lyrics

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