Take a drink just to give me some weight
Some Uber-Man I'd make
I'm barely a vapor
They shone a chlorine light on a host individual sins
Let's carve my aging face off
Fetch us a knife, start with my eyes
Down so the lines form a grimacing smile
Close your eyes to corral a virtue
Is this fooling anyone else?
Never worked so long and hard
To cement a failure
We can blow on our thumbs and posture
But the lonely are such delicate things
The wind from a wasp could blow them into the sea with stones on their feet
Lost to the light and the loving we need
Still to come
The worst part and you know it
There is a numbness
In your heart and it's growing
With burnt sage and a forest of bygones
I click my heels, get the devils in line
A list of things I could lay the blame on
Might give me a way out
But with each turn it's this front and center
Like a dart stuck square in your eye
Every post you can hitch your faith on is a pie in the sky, chock full of lies
A tool we devise to make sinking stones fly
And still to come
The worst part and you know it
There is a numbness
In your heart and it's growing
The Shins is an American indie rock band formed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1996. The band is the project of singer-songwriter James Mercer, who has served as the band's sole constant member throughout numerous line-up changes. The band's current line-up consists of Mercer, alongside Yuuki Matthews (bass, keyboards), Mark Watrous (guitar, keyboards, lap steel), Patti King (keyboards), and Jon Sortland (drums). They are based in Portland, Oregon.
The band was formed by Mercer as a side project to Flake Music, who were active from 1992 to 1999. Flake Music released two 7-inch singles and a full-length album, When You Land Here It's Time to Return, on Omnibus Records and were touring with Modest Mouse when the Shins became signed to Sub Pop Records. The Shins' first two records, Oh, Inverted World (2001) and Chutes Too Narrow (2003), performed well commercially and received critical acclaim. The single "New Slang" brought the band to mainstream attention when it was featured in the 2004 film Garden State. Consequently, the band's third album, Wincing the Night Away (2007), was a major success for the group, peaking at number two on the Billboard 200 and earning a Grammy Award nomination.
Following this, the Shins signed to Columbia Records and Mercer parted ways with the entire original lineup, deeming it "an aesthetic decision". Following a near five-year hiatus, Port of Morrow, the band's fourth studio album, was released in 2012. Their fifth album, Heartworms, was released in March 2017.
