How I Left the Ministry

How I Left the Ministry
Album	Undercard
Released	2010
Artist	The Extra Lens
Length	1:42
Previous Track	"Programmed Cell Death"
Next Track	"Some Other Way"

How I Left the Ministry is the sixth song on the album Undercard.

Lyrics

There was one thing I found that I couldn't help thinking
As they pried me free with the jaws of life
None of this disaster would ever have happened
If I had not been driving my neighbor's wife

To the Alta Loma Days Inn, where I'd registered us as
A couple with a name I'm sure some other couple somewhere has

And the last thing I saw before falling unconscious
Was your right hand tracing a heart on my thigh
And I thought my God what an infantile gesture
And I thought my God what an indescribable high

The autumn air was sweeter than a slice of wedding cake
As I overshot the exit and I tried and failed to find the brake

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song

"You guys know the story of When A Man Loves a Woman, right? Oh well, the story is almost doubtless false, but all stories are false, so...it's that Percy Sledge loses his woman, I'm not sure whether that means his wife or his girlfriend, the sources are unclear on this matter, but that, at any rate, the person with whom he was involved parts ways with him and, drowning in grief, he makes an appointment with the recording studio, but when he does so he shows up, and the band is playing, you know, your standard tonic minor and fourth vamp, and he improvises the lyrics to When a Man Loves a Woman, right, and it becomes a single that later will be used to try and convince you that if you don't spend two months salary on your wife you don't actually love her, but that part of it is tawdry, but the part where you imagine a young man, about 21, down in Georgia, which is where he's from, walking into a studio, and going 'When a man loves a woman', out of nothing, out of just his mind, oh that's a nice story, we should believe that story, we should believe it whether we know it to be false or not, right? This story is the other end of that story, and I'm afraid Franklin that I'm going to have to hold the lyric sheet close to my face to do it while you carry the chords, can you do that?" -- Video (unknown show)

Live Shows this Song Was Played at

• 2002-07-24 - Sound & Fury In-Store - New York, NY
• 2002-12-07 - Amstel Festival - Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• 2003-03-14 - The Hideout - Austin, TX
• 2005-11-04 - Duke Coffeehouse - Durham, NC
• 2007-07-22 - Rhino Records - Claremont, CA
• 2010-10-19 - Tin Angel - Philadelphia, PA
• 2010-10-20 - Rock and Roll Hotel - Washington, D.C.
• 2010-10-21 - Mercury Lounge - New York, NY
• 2010-10-22 - KEXP Session - Ace Hotel - New York, NY
• 2010-10-23 - Iron Horse Music Hall - Northampton, MA

Videos of this Song

• 2010-10-23 - Iron Horse Music Hall - Northampton, MA