Jens Lekman
Not Because It’s Easy, But Because It’s Hard
Knock knock, are you there?
Sorry to wake you, my fellow bear
I'll slip this song under a rock somewhere
So you can hear it when it's summer

It hurts to hear you been exhausted
I've seen too many people 'round me haunted
By the cruelest to-do lists
Longer than the end credits of movies

It shocked me to hear about Avicii
Did you see that documentary?
I read Avicii means hell in Buddhism
And hell is what his dream had become

That scene when he tried to cancel those shows
Made me think back on some years ago
So scared of letting anyone down
I worked myself slowly into the ground

Felt the cortisol pumping through my sleep
When an ad flashed by in my Facebook feed
A cheap DNA cloning kit
Didn't know technology had made it there yet

Connected it to a USB hub
Dabbed saliva on a cotton bud
Gave my passwords to all my email accounts
And slowly a body rose from the ground
With more clones of me we would have more time
One could write the tune and the other the rhymes
A third could focus on the business
And a fourth would send greeting cards for Christmas

But soon our focus fell apart
I said “guys, if all of us do our part
We could make it to the moon with our art
Not because it's easy, but because it's hard
But because it's hard”

I heard the clones bragging
About all the sleep they'd been missing
They posted vids of them sipping
On a smoothie while their eyes were twitching

Coffee for lunch, email for dinner
In those press photos we've never looked thinner
Exhaustion only happens to a winner
Wear it like a badge of honour

It was not until clone number one
Was hospitalized with palpitations
That they asked themselves what they'd done
And were horrified by what they had become
And the slaves turned on their master
Filmed me while they kicked my ass there
And posted it with the caption
“Smash the capitalist system”

So I hope you slept well in your bear's den
I hope you're back on your feet again
But if you should need the time to
Take the next month off and I'll cover for you