Dave

🎸✨ Lies, half-truths, and tall tales wrapped in indie rock, dipped in jangle pop, and sprinkled with post-punk irony. This track is basically a musical fact-checker: neighbors who “won the jackpot” but need bus money, ex-classmates with “beauty queens” who look more like haunted tiaras, and sweethearts whispering eternal love right before locking lips behind the grocery store.

It’s catchy. It’s bitter-sweet. It’s funny in the way only human delusions can be funny.
And yes, the song will be number one in the U.S. any day now… (or is that just another fantasy?).

Plug in your headphones, shake your head at the nonsense of life, and sing along:
“So it turned out to be… only fantasy.”

Lyrics:

She said she loves me, and there is only me,
Whispered sweet promises, like waves upon the sea.
But a few days later, what did I see?
Her kissing another man, behind the grocery.

So it turned out to be, only fantasy.
Cheap little words, but they never carried me.
So it turned out to be, only fantasy —
Painted-up tales with no reality.

My neighbor told me, with a sparkle in his eye,
He won the big jackpot, man, he touched the sky.
But the very next week, he’s knocking on my door,
“Could you lend me some money? I’m a little bit poor...”

So it turned out to be, only fantasy.
Cheap little words, but they never carried me.
So it turned out to be, only fantasy —
Painted-up tales with no reality.

An old classmate found me, on a late night street,
Said he married a beauty queen, the world at his feet.
But when she came ‘round the corner, truth hit me fast,
Let’s just say the pageant crown was stuck in the past...

So it turned out to be, only fantasy.
Cheap little words, but they never carried me.
So it turned out to be, only fantasy —
Painted-up tales with no reality.

Stories we tell, to shine a little more,
But when the mask slips, we’ve all heard it before.
Truth is a mirror, lies crack it apart,
Every cheap story leaves a scar on the heart.

And now I tell you, with a wink and a smile,
This song’s number one in the U.S. in a while.
But when the charts are out, and you look for me —
Well, guess what, friends? It’s pure fantasy...

So it turned out to be, only fantasy.
Cheap little words, but they never carried me.
So it turned out to be, only fantasy —
Painted-up tales with no reality.

Fantasy

Fields of bones beneath the grain,
Ghosts still work the southern chain.
Smoke from cities, blood in rain,
Dollar signs tattooed with pain.

Bright clean flag waves above the barn,
Dreams embalmed in the graveyard.
Gold runs slick down the preacher’s sleeve,
Truth’s a wound you can’t believe.

American Maggot — chew and grow,
On the body you don’t know.
The light went some wars ago,
But the TV swears it’s a morning show.

American Maggot — hum that hymn,
Of rust and oil and seraphim.
You wear the crown, the rot, the sin,
And call it a resurrection.

Steel and shadow, glass and gun,
Children coughing in the sun.
ICE vans crawl where the workers run,
Freedom limps — the laws undone.

Church bells ring, don’t cure all,
All the empires learn to fall.
Blessed are these blind and numb,
Who burn the Earth for their kingdom come.

American Maggot — creep and feed,
On every broken prayer and creed.
The scar’s the only vote you need,
Waving on as the country bleeds.

Somewhere under Wall Street’s floor,
History whispers, “Never more.”
The gangrene won’t heal, it just keeps score —
While the Maggot eats the core.

Say Goodbye

Dave Matthews Band

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