Sessions With The Shrink – Song Lyrics
A quick note on these song lyrics: I had bought a new computer which came with a pre-installed voice recognition program. I had to read a bunch of words to train the computer to recognise me specifically but even after all that work, it still struggled to translate what I was saying into the headset onto the page. In fact, a lot of it was gobbledy-gook. I took some of the gobbledy-gook phrases and turned them into these song lyrics because I thought they had a certain poetry to them, even though they often made no sense.
The phrase “What can I say?” was what I had to say when the computer when it was struggling and I was struggling. I incorporated that, too, and obviously that is what the reference “I thought at least a machine would understand” means.
Verse One
She always said sessions with the shrink
Would result in non-linear thought
But it was completely, blindingly linear
How easily I was caught
Pens drawn at dawn or on the hour
Did she say I had a choice?
Could she tell the strongest impulse I had
Was to lose my failing voice?
But what was the worst she could find?
Holidays that earmarked fears
A wedding band worn to deter successors
Rusty old tins that were tears
The debutante nymph and the frail voyeur
Nursing each other to health
A broken hammer on the soapbox stand
A lazy preoccupation with stealth
Chorus
But sessions with the shrink
Were always held in silence
The hard way was my way
And sessions with the shrink
Always ended in violence
Someone besides me had to pay
My sessions with the shrink
Were nothing more than pretence
Little more than a delay
I thought at least a machine would understand
What can I say?
Verse Two
She found nothing for her sermon
So I stayed confined for her contentment
And my three prisons were forming alliances
Guaranteed overnight resentment
A husband who never thought to say goodbye
A mother who never thought to let it lie
A shrink who never thought not to pry
A heart that never thought to fortify
Old books weighed my other half
But I had no time for ounces
Only the previous wearer’s happiness
But the good shrink always pounces
But the good shrink never thought to ask
My chosen path in life
She never thought my choice would be
The path of eternal wife
Chorus
So sessions with the shrink
Were always held in silence
The hard way was my way
And sessions with the shrink
Always ended in violence
Someone besides me had to pay
My sessions with the shrink
Were nothing more than pretence
Little more than a delay
I thought at least a machine would understand
What can I say?
Coda
But the sessions were lessons
And the lessons were hard
And the shrink made me think
But the thinking was scarred
And more strident than the silence
And more hurtful than that violence
And more real than the pretence
I never was a machine
Chorus
Still sessions with the shrink
Were always held in silence
The hard way was my way
And sessions with the shrink
Always ended in violence
Someone besides me had to pay
My sessions with the shrink
Were nothing more than pretence
Little more than a delay
And I’m closer to you than ever
Sessions with the shrink couldn’t stop it
I’ll be with you any day now
