[Verse 1]
When the sky was the color of cream
And you started leaving messages on my answering machine
Telling me that you were way across town
And would be home in a night or two

[Verse 2]
I started keeping track of my losses
There were only one or two I couldn't cover
And up there against the milk white sky I saw
Fleeting vestiges of you

[Chorus 1]
The way you vanished gradually
Has made a bitter man of me
And the way you vanished gradually
Has made a bitter man of me

[Verse 3]
Where the ocean cleaves the rocks real clean
I dropped my answering machine
I watched the waves chew it into tiny little pieces
Of seafoam hissing in the air

[Verse 4]
On the balance sheet I'd been keeping in my mind
I entered two hundred kroners to the left of the debit line
It was what the machine had cost me
It was a greater loss than I could bear
[Verse 5]
I hear the wheels and knobs whirring down to this very day
Long after the ocean has washed it all away
I heard the train go by last night
And it's a slow train out of here, alright

[Chorus 2]
But the way you disappeared in slow degrees
Has made a very patient man of me, yeah