Lee Beatty - Esse Quam Videri Lyrics

Leaning back on a bottle crate
Sam stares at the summer haze
Hot pavement shimmers like a fuzzy dream
As the world passes him by
Sam knows, he can't deny
That to be is so much better than to seem

He can't go back in time
To wash the dirt from his story line
The stain on his clothes will never clean
That's the way his story goes
It's too late when he finally knows
That to be is so much better than to seem

Years ago Sam was the man
But he built his house on sand
And the bank foreclosed his wagers and schemes
His wife left before his fall
Then he turned to alcohol
His only friend a bottle of Jim Beam

He can't go back in time
To wash the dirt from his story line
The stain on his clothes will never clean
That's the way his story goes
It's too late when he finally knows
That to be is so much better than to seem

His poems prayers and promises rang hollow
And his chew was much smaller than his bite
When the town-folk found him too hard to swallow
Like Icarus, Sam fell from lofty heights

Gray clouds dull the warm sunshine
Coal ash peppers the laundry line
And rusts away the paint on his broke down car
Sulfur stink from the old dye mill
Seeps through the window sills
And clings inside his memory's Mason Jars

He can't go back in time
To wash the dirt from his story line
The stain on his clothes will never clean
That's the way this story goes
It's too late when you finally know
That to be is so much better than to seem
To be is so much better than to seem