MY PILLOW IS THE THRESHOLD

is a song off the Silver Jews new LP "Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea". It won't be released till August 2008 but thanks to illegal file sharing I've procured a copy. If the internet police are reading this: I promise to buy the vinyl the week it's released.

This song seems to be in defense of the sleepy intellectual who the rest of the world sees as a lazy parasite yet who might just be some sort of sage dragging important ideas from the other side into reality. I especially dig the "throw my thoughts like tomahawks" and "what looks like sleep is really hot pursuit" lines.


I take decaf coffee
Two sugars and one cream
I don’t see the use in staying up just to watch tv

I unplug all the neon
Turn the ringer off the phone
Throw my thoughts like tomahawks
Into this world which I disown

Because the pillow that I dream on
is the threshold of a kingdom
is the threshold of a world where I’m with you

it’s a dark and snowy secret
and it has to do with heaven
and what looks like sleep is really hot pursuit

I hold your picture in my mind
It makes me warm when I am cold
Gets me up and it makes me walk
It makes me question what I’m told

Somewhere in a foggy atlas
Lookout mountain lookout sea
First life takes time then time takes life
Now the next moves up to me

Because the pillow that I dream on
Leads to some fantastic glory
It’s the threshold of a world I can’t ignore

Like time unspooled from heaven
did you find me sleeping in your doorway
now I’m here for good
I won’t leave you anymore


David Berman is an American poet, cartoonist, and singer-songwriter best known for his work with indie-rock band the Silver Jews.

Here's a short video clip by artist Jeremy Blake, a recent suicide plagued by an obsession that Scientologists were out to destroy his career, with Berman reading poetry over it.

It's called Sodium Fox