1. |
Turn Out Empty
03:25
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In the dry summer days
when the crickets all play
and you know that they
all call for you
I'll be there
with a green-eyed glare
giving you the stare
that you need
You mustn't be blue
I could have love in me too
It just might take a few
years to find it
And if I have it in me
and I don't turn out empty
I swear that you'll be
the first to know
'Cause the days they vanish like smoke
and down to your bones you're a-burnin'
'Cause the vastness of the sea
it don't match what you need
And I'll here you cryin' out to me
So don't make up your mind
It will only take time
'till you're cryin'
and grabbin' for the air, babe
But I see you're resolved
so I'll give it my all
to wait for you to fall
to the floor
'Cause I remember the way
that my father would say
an early grave is the work of a beauty
and I ain't never been hurt
but I do take his word
though I really, really, really,
really don't want to be alone
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2. |
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Doctor's not gonna cure our ills
Preacher's not gonna bend out wills
Mother's not gonna set us still for long
Father told me he's got a plan
If that don't work, we'll burn the land
I wish I gave a damn, but I don't
So if you're gonna leave, don't go far
These distances can break my heart
Don't you worry one second more
I told you once and once before
I whispered through your bedroom door, it's alright
So if you're gonna cry, cry in my arms
You can't be loved and not be harmed
I tell you so you aren't alarmed when you are
So if you're gonna leave, don't go far
These distances can break my heart
Doctor's not gonna cure our ills
Preacher's not gonna bend out wills
Mother's not gonna set us still for long
Father told me he's got a plan
If that don't work, we'll burn the land
I wish I gave a damn, but I don't
So if you're gonna leave, don't go far
These distances can break my heart
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3. |
Grave Clothes
02:39
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You saw me in my grave clothes
The first day we met
For forty days I trembled
For forty more I wept
We carved our letters on an oak tree
And around those letters carved a heart
And around that tree we built a white picket fence
Outside the fence we kept the dark
Now fences don't keep out the darkness
And darkness can't discern the thief
The thief who'd sneak into our garden
And chop down our oak tree
When I hear that oak tree fallin'
I'll come lookin' for that man
As you stand there cold and crying
With the axe blade in your hand
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4. |
Hard Way
03:46
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You said you're leaving
I'll see you in the morning
And that is just one more thing
That ties me to a place
Though you cry now
All I can think is just how
Those damp gray lines they have bound
Your eyes upon your face
It's a hard way but it's our way
When you return
Tell me of your travels
The angels and the rabble
And how they sang the same
You'll say you missed me
I will say I missed you
Then you say you love me,
It's all that we can do
It's a hard way but it's our way
My words are weapons
My success, it is regression
My joy, it is depression
I'm leaping just to fall
Will we share a tombstone
Will I go in the ground all alone
If so, will you remarry?
Will you marry me at all?
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5. |
Hatchet
02:56
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I've got a hatchet at my heel
To lay me low
He aims to, he aims to lay me low
I felt it in the womb
Overcame
He took my blood and then he took my name
He took to the air
With each breath
He filled his lungs until there was nothing left
I've got a hatchet at my heel
To lay me low
He aims to, he aims to lay me low
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6. |
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I put my weight against the weather
I lay my hands upon the wheel
But they're only holy harlots
So I try not to feel the winds blow
The winds blow
And the wheels turn to the city
and my mind turns back and sees
you climbing into my bed
with the dirt brushed off your feet
Winds do howl, winds do howl
And if the heart's a lonely hunter
then my eyes are lyin' thieves
that keep me from your fingers
climbing up my sleeve
Winds do howl, winds do howl
And your naked shoulders tell me
that I'm awfully close to sin
Praise the good Lord that Jehovah
doesn't know where you have been
Winds do howl, winds do howl
And there were roots down in the river
back when I was just a boy
and there was something pure within me
that just ain't pure no more
Winds have howled, red winds howl
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7. |
Serpent Song
02:35
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The serpent bit my heel and I bruised his head
Though we were not dead, we were dying
"It's how it's gotta be," that copperhead said
As we fell to the red ground, writhing
So I sand a tune to charm that old snake
That I might make my escape
The snake, it seemed, had heard the song once or twice
And decided I needed advice
"My bite, it will hurt but not harm you."
So I sang my song and sang it in vain
It didn't ease my pain or my cryin'
Just then the serpent turned and wiped up my tears
Said "Nothing to fear," he was lying
So I stared into his eyes for a spell
To contemplate heaven and hell
I heard him talk about when grandfather fell
And when he got to the parts that I knew
I knew he had changed them to hide you
I told that serpent that "I see through your schemes,
You get behind me, I'm not buying."
The snake just smiled and said, "I'll do as you please,
For a small fee I'll be complyin'."
So to the scene of the original crime
The serpent and I went this time
I still don't know what that snake hoped we would find
But here's what I saw: the rise and the fall
And my grandfather walking just like I am
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8. |
Living With Your Ghost
03:07
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9. |
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I dreamt, I dreamed the Nazarene
Gored him in the dead of night
The body of a broken wife
She was left standing there clean
And her lack of clothes, her mannequin pose
It was all elected pain
Direct attempts to hide the shame
and now it's the only thing that shows
The holy wars the prophecies' whore
Mystery, the mother's name
A cup of gold, the blood of saints
Scarlet beast from the ocean floor
I looked upon a sky that boasts
Fury for the fruit of wombs
Jackals crying in their tombs
An anger fit for the nation's hosts
And the scalpel blade, the liar-sage
Cut the fattened like a calf
But seven trumpets clear a path
Peels of thunder burn an empty cage
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10. |
It's A Long Ways
05:10
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It's a long ways that's holding me down
And I'm holding on to you
But the onliest way for me to be all day
Is alone with the loneliest tune
And the rain's been falling down
Ain't we all fallen, too?
And the prettiest of girls in this whole fallen world
Left to pine with the grittiest of blues
So me and the boys we'll start making some noise
and together we can make it all pretty
We will stomp where we stand with our bottles in hand
Make the best of this god-awful city
Somewhere, someone once told me
That alone is only letting go
and the surest of things that this crazy life brings
is a comfort in the lowest of lows
So me and the boys we'll start making some noise
and together we can make it all pretty
We will stomp where we stand with our bottles in hand
Make the best of this god-awful city
So me and the boys we'll start making some noise
and together we can make it all pretty
We will stomp where we stand with our bottles in hand
Make the best of this god-awful city
So me and the boys we'll start making some noise
and together we can make it all pretty
We can stomp where we stand with our brothers in hand
Make the best of this god-awful city
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11. |
Sugar Land Blues
03:33
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I've been writin' tragedies in my bed
With broken lovers that hurt in my head
But they don't seem to come alive
or my ink just lets 'em die
like burdens that I know I need to shed
And I'm hopin' that I can wake up
Feel both the joy and the sorrow we sup
Because the comfort creeps
and it lulls me right to sleep
The burdens that I choose to keep are a crutch
The blank page is waitin' for the ghost
of that woman that I love the most
O how she terrifies! Mixes truth right in with lies
Don't know why she hides her cries
From coast to coast
So now I'm waitin' for that midnight train
to take me away from these hollow and tame
Above me in the dead of night
I can see that ever-lovin' light
Shinin' down to give me sight
And to ease my pain
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12. |
Lonesome Tune
02:57
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I've been searching for that lonesome tune
The one I hear when I've been thinking about you
The lover's theme that comes on strong
But never lasts for long
And I've been sounding notes in my despair
Hoping that I might find you there
But as each note fades, and they always do
I have yet to find the strain
And it makes me sing even more
It makes me sing even more
Silence taunts me from time to time
In between that sighing rhythm and rhyme
And in that quiet old refrain
I start to sigh again
Oh, the lies I have told myself
Now I tell them to the wishing wells
And the echoes answer me in song
With my own melodies
And it makes me sing even more
It makes me sing even more
O, my song it is the peacock's tail
Proud as hell with heaven on its trail
It calls to you in golds and blues
But those feathers never flew
Someday You'll sing just like the whipperwhill
Someday, baby, you surely will
And we'll throw our dirt against that wall
And see what sticks and falls
And it makes me sing even more
It makes me sing even more
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13. |
It's Hard to Resist
04:28
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O the sirens sang for me today
sang for me today sang for me today
O the sirens sang for me on the other side of town
As he laid me down to sleep I prayed
down to sleep I prayed down to sleep I prayed
As he laid me down to sleep I could not make a sound
Well I wasn't there so it's not for me to say
not for me to say not for me to say
I wasn't there so it's not for me to say he didn't raised me from the ground
Pout and part your lips before I go
lips before I go lips before I go
Pout and part your lips before I go down to the valley of death
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