Down at the drugstore
+
where they sell medicine
+
back in the corner
+
stands a plywood Superman.
+
He never saves nobody from nothing.
+
He just leans against the wall
+
looking sad.
+
Me, I go climbing on my broken ladder.
+
Aiming for high places, but I never quite can
+
lay two hands on the heart of the matter.
+
Sometimes I feel like that plywood Superman.
+
Last night at the truck stop,
+
the cashier at the diesel desk
+
stopped to talk to me as I paid for my beer.
+
She's single with 2 kids,
+
says she loves Las Vegas.
+
Her dream's one day some rich man
+
will take her away from here.
+
When she goes climbing on her broken ladder,
+
she's searching for some sweet, far-off promised land.
+
But nobody never breaks free of nothing
+
wrapped in the arms of a plywood superman.
+
Now my old daddy, he worked in a factory,
+
and he used to beat on me
+
with his mind not his hands.
+
And though for ten years he's laid
+
in that grave in Birmingham,
+
to this day I still hear him saying
+
what a useless thing I am.
+
When I go climbing on my broken ladder,
+
I'm searching for something
+
but what I don't understand
+
is how you can climb forever
+
and still never reach nothing...
+
trapped in your life like some plywood superman.
+
