Maybe life is only a melody Hanging low over a symphony As we grow, yearning above to be The hand to bow a love we can never free I was a rebel Lone in the field Touched in the head some And broke in the heel Making a mess of trying to be real Happiest running with nowhere to feel Or maybe life is more like a glass eye Turning the head of a child that’s passing by The man too old and tired to wonder why The kid caught and stuck, “Mama how does he ever cry?” I was an actor Sure of my word Shaping my part ‘Tween the wings of a bird ‘Till one day a hunter he shot what he heard I had to go deaf to realize he’d aimed at the earth What will it come to now I’m a joke and a riddle and I don’t even know how To the demon that won’t take my hand And the angel that won’t understand That maybe life is only a melody Hanging low over a symphony As we grow, yearning above to be The hand to bow a love we can never free I was a rebel Lone in the field Touched in the head some And broke in the heel Making a mess of trying to be real Happiest running with nowhere to feel

Get your feet on the ground instead of looking around I left a message in the mirror for you I'm packing my bags with soot and cinnamon rags and gettin' holy by the miles on my shoes Oh, my work was all I had years pointing to eternity for all the other things I'd rather be My soul reaction to the way he talks? I mean, he built himself a body out of a drink and a wife and a church and a house and a clock And if I don't believe him and yet still depend on his pocket for fare to the show I hope they sing our song again I thought your mother should know that we both had to go and so I bargained up a compass for two I drew her a map back to where we were at and wrote I'm happy that I got close to you But oh, won't she be so sad years painted on an empty lane her look 'a dreamin' up the kids again My soul reaction to the way he talks? I mean, he built himself a body out of a drink and a wife and a church and a house and a clock And if I don't believe him and yet still depend on his pocket for fare to the show I hope they sing our song again If I don't want living to be what I'm not then I'd better get better at living without all that I don't got Yeah, if I don't want living to be what I'm not then I'd better get better at living without all that I don't got

In a manner of speaking I’m twisting my tongue As out of the ashes I come A phoenix in pokermark Casting a chain From all these here Dreams in my brain Oh, I can’t be asked To be more than a word That falls from her lips When a secret is stirred She says fools only bother With answers like me So lashed in the mind To what will never be But I’ll meet the right one Too soon or too late That one rule in love That’s making me wait As here I fall entranced again With someone sweet And just my friend So don’t ask a pilgrim To pay for a bed She’s honest enough in her head And oh don’t she own that one favour You’d like her to meet As she laughs to herself at your feet You know she carried His body, boy, down to the shore And tied off a stone To that life she’d adored And then turned to the city To set herself free And chased all kinds of devils Up all kinds of trees Oh, I’ll meet right now Too soon or too late That one rule in love That’s making me wait As here I fall entranced again With someone sweet And just my friend That night we came Just to leave and to make up our minds Not to let such a moment be blind For my part, I said, “Baby, I cannot be true To someone as perfect as you” “No, I need a serpent A bird that had flown A leaf fallen from the tree A queen turned to stone For it’s only to her That I can release My time and my memory My patience, my peace” She said, “I’ll meet right now Too soon or too late That one rule in love That’s making me wait As here I fall entranced again With someone sweet And just my friend”

Who will let me sit beside them and forget That I’m becoming something that I am not yet Would you know me even as I crawl Would you show me some beauty in it all So let me die to you and I Even if it’s true That there’s nothing home about me alone Inside a life I once knew

Please don’t write me anymore You’re worth forgetting, that I’m sure I have every reason to Think of you the way I do Babe I just don’t want to hear What you love’s been whisperin’ in your ear Or who is who, or what you do Or what you’ve learned to break in two But God bless the boy that winds up with you He’ll have a hell of a time With a hell of a mind That thinks the way you do And God bless the toys that break under you They’ll be a’ firing straight, but when it’s too late They’ll throw the children in the river too Oh, babe I just don’t want to hear What your coping mind did find in fear I’m sure you’re plenty good at movin’ plenty fast To the very next from the very last But God bless the boy that winds up with you He’ll have a hell of a time With a hell of a mind That thinks the way you do And God bless the toys that find out the truth ‘Bout the games you play With the words you say For a heart too young to choose So, I will turn into a thought That you once had and then forgot As you burn yourself into a scar On the face of a man that went too far But God bless the boy that winds up with you He’ll have a hell of a time With a hell of a mind That thinks the way you do And God bless the toys that break under you They’ll be a’ firing straight, but when it’s too late They’ll throw the children in the river too So please don’t write me anymore You’re worth forgetting, that I’m sure I have every reason to Think of you the way I do

Hold me down I can’t decide between you and I Well maybe life will take me by surprise Yes hold me down I can’t decide on the reason why It’s only for you that I dance now It’s only for me that I cry I want something more that perfect I want love to make you worth it Hold me down I can’t pretend in the very end Well maybe I’ll just draw you in the sky Yes, hold me down If ever found to be back again It’s only for you that I dance now It’s only for me that I cry I want something more than perfect I want love to make you worth it All I’ve ever known Has taken up and flown

The furnace burns, the camera turns The whisper fades, the lover learns The apple shines, the water chimes The empty leave the whole behind But don’t forget your aim my dear I feel so much in the song you sing A key in the light on a sun-ruby ring Stone colder to know that I brought everything In case your rouge belladonna, babe, smothers your instincts Now don’t’ forget your age my dear as the mountain wakes up, shakes up, breaks up and makes up you Now the roses count themselves hatching a plan With a bandaged tragedy taking your hand You chase down love lust to kill a man Just to make on beautiful act understand you Now don’t forget your shame my dear as the mountain wakes up, shakes up, breaks up and makes up you

I can share your wave But I cannot make you wait I can move too fast But I can’t make it last But the strangers down in the market The strangers painting a part of it Bone blue on moon side Of this old world in a vast tide Oh, how we love ourselves In speaking of all our wealth If not for this growing crowd Who are we playing too loud As strangers asking for sympathy Strangers broken with all the trees Down burn like a moon heart In a sky sounding old dark Now the light outside Is teaching me how to hide From the only way to escape Without burning away And the strangers clap in the meadow The strangers praising the shadows That fall down like old books ‘Bout chances had and never took Oh, strangers naked before me Strangers asking the war to be Less pain and more time Oh, more body and less mind