Nomads Indians Saints |
Clearing webs from the hovel
a blistered hand on the handle of a shovel
I've been digging too deep, I always do.
I see my face on the surface
I look a lot like narcissus
A dark abyss of an emptiness
Standing on the edge of a drowning blue.
I look behind my ears for the green
Even my sweat smells clean
Glare off the white hurts my eyes
Gotta get out of bed get a hammer and a nail
Learn how to use my hands, not just my head
I think myself into jail
Now I know a refuge never grows
From a chin in a hand in a thoughtful pose
Gotta tend the earth if you want a rose.
I had a lot of good intentions
Sit around for fifty years and then collect a pension,
Started seeing the road to hell and just where it starts.
But my life is more than a vision
The sweetest part is acting after making a decision
I started seeing the whole as a sum of its parts.
My life is part of the global life
I'd found myself becoming more immobile
When I'd think a little girl in the world can't do anything.
A distant nation my community
A street person my responsibility
If I have a care in the world I have a gift to bring.
Welcome me to the city of angels,
devil prophets still hold my hand.
I walked your stillborn streets for hours,
ethnic echoes spitting out their trials.
I'll be the first to praise the sun,
the first to praise the moon,
the first to hold the lone coyote,
the last to set it free.
Welcome me to a haven given,
it's well received into my open arms.
I ran in my sleep through shaking tremors,
I had the splitting earth echoing in my ears.
I'll be the first to praise the sun,
the first to praise the moon,
the first to hold the lone coyote,
the last to set it free.
Welcome me to the city of angels,
there's a devil monkey laying on our backs.
Where's the heart, where's the bullet for breaking.
Somebody give me a weapon,
a pacifying weapon.
I'll be the first to praise the sun,
the first to praise the moon,
the first to hold the lone coyote,
the last to set it free.
I'm coming home with a stone, strapped onto my back.
I'm coming home with a burning hope turning all my blues to black.
I'm looking for a sacred hand to carve into my stone.
A ghost of comfort, angels breath - to keep this life inside my chest.
This world falls on me with hopes of immortality.
Everywhere I turn all the beauty just keeps shaking me.
I woke up in the middle of a dream, scared the world was too much for me.
Sejarez said, "don't let go, just plant the seeds and watch them grow."
I've slept in rainy canyon lands, cold drenched to my skin.
I always wake to find a face to calm these troubled lands.
This world falls on me with dreams of immortality.
Everywhere I turn all the beauty just keeps shaking me.
Running - end - earth - swimming - edge - sea - laughing - under - starry sky
This world was meant for me.
Don't bury me, carry me.
I wish I was a nomad, an Indian, or a saint.
The edge of death would disappear, leave me nothing left to taint.
I wish I was a nomad, an Indian, or a saint.
Give me walking shoes, feathered arms, and a key to heaven's gate.
This world falls on me with dreams of immortality.
Maybe we'll make Texas by the morning
Light the bayou with our tail lights in the night
800 miles to el paso from the state line
And we never have the money for the flight
I'm in the back seat sleepy from the travel
Played our hearts out all night long in New Orleans
I'm dirty from the diesel fumes, drinking coffee black
When the first breath of Texas comes in clean
And there's something 'bout the Southland in the springtime
Where the waters flow with confidence and reason
Though I miss her when I'm gone it won't ever be too long
Till I'm home again to spend my favorite season
When God made me born a yankee he was teasin'
There's no place like home and none more pleasin'
Than the Southland in the springtime
In Georgia nights are softer than a whisper
Beneath a quilt somebody's mother made by hand
With the farmland like a tapestry passed down through generations
And the peach trees stitched across the land
There'll be cider up near Helen off the roadside
And boiled peanuts in a bag to warm your fingers
And the smoke from the chimneys meets its maker in the sky
With a song that winter wrote whose melody lingers
From the bowery to the brimstone, I tried to find your heart.
With drugs of initiation, bottom of the barrel that drops.
I understand your causes, sympathize the motivation.
But all the details of this war are just self-infatuation.
1 2 3
Nothings for free
4 5 6
Pick up the sticks and go home.
Manic blood runs thick my friend, are you looking for a clean escape?
What's left when the locks have all been broken, young children of authority?
How long can you be agile, dancing between the alter and the mercy seat?
Here's a chance to make a choice, are you aware of the fire beneath your feet?
1 2 3
Nothings for free
4 5 6
Pick up the sticks and go home.
The basement lies within us, the fear comes through the door
There's nothing left between us, the fear becomes a roar.
Once that wheel is in motion, don't you lose what you have found.
I'm talking about that burning wheel of tongues, everything that makes it go
around.
We're all born in the devils scorn, they want to see you die.
Are you true? Everything they say is a lie.
1 2 3
Nothings for free
4 5 6
Pick up the sticks and go home
For you, I would tattoo me
With lines crossing into a hand,
And a heart that would never bleed.
The twilight and the horse
Drawn on my arm
Standing for an addiction,
Pray we go unharmed.
Here is my love and anger
These are my gods, these are my scars.
Here is my love and anger
My arms are burning, but they're open wide
Some things, I hold too tightly,
Some things, I'll never I'll never touch.
I'm wearing down the stones
In the river
All my life, i've painted
With anger's brush
Here is my love and anger
These are my gods, these are my scars.
Here is my love and anger
My arms are burning, but they're open wide
Oh, you precious kid
I have a motion just for you.
A warrior, barefoot and dancing
With tears of pain and beauty
All of this is true for you
Here is my love and anger
These are my gods, these are my scars.
Here is my love and anger
My arms are burning, but they're open wide
Pointing out the graveyards
I will be the reaper
If you will be
The keeper of my heart
Thought I knew my mind like the back of my hand,
The gold and the rainbow, but nothing panned out as I planned.
And they say only milk and honey's gonna make your soul satisfied!
Well I better learn how to swim
Cause the crossing is chilly and wide.
Twisted guardrail on the highway, broken glass on the cement
A ghost of someone's tragedy
How recklessly my time has been spent.
And they say that it's never too late, but you don't get any younger!
Well I better learn how to starve the emptiness
And feed the hunger
Up on the watershed, standing at the fork in the road
You can stand there and agonize
Till your agony's your heaviest load.
You'll never fly as the crow flies, get used to a country mile.
When you're learning to face the path at your pace
Every choice is worth your while.
Well there's always retrospect to light a clearer path
Every five years or so I look back on my life
And I have a good laugh.
You start at the top, go full circle round
Catch a breeze, take a spill
But ending up where i started again makes me wanna stand still.
Stepping on a crack, breaking up and looking back
Every tree limb overhead just seems to sit and wait.
Until every step you take becomes a twist of fate.
I've taken so many down, I've helped them all to dismount.
I've followed so many down, I take their hand me downs.
All with hope, all with hope that
Emptiness brings fullness and
Loss of love brings wholeness to us all.
Everything that I believe crawls from underneath the streets.
Everything I truly love comes from somewhere high above.
Everything that I believe is wrong with you is wrong with me.
Everything I truly love I love in you and I love in me.
So give me hope, give me hope that
Emptiness brings fullness and
Loss of love brings wholeness to us all.
Swear you can't swim the river,
I saw you running to jump in.
I swore I would never be your sinner,
Until I held your sin.
Now you ask me why I'm here.
The same as you, I'm scared - it's fear.
I've become the beggar now, you've become the saint somehow.
Twist the words and place the blame. Tell me now aren't we the same?
Tripping in our yellow feet, checking underneath our sheets,
For some hope, give me hope that
Emptiness brings fullness and
Loss of love brings wholeness to us all.
You and me of the 10,000 wars,
dividing life into factions of pleasure and chores -
a bed to be made and a bed to lie in,
a hand in the darker side and our sights set on zion.
The heart of a skeptic and the mind of a child,
put my life in a box and let my imagination run wild
pour the cement for my feet.
the heart and the mind on a parallel course
never the two shall meet.
and, oh, the dissatisfied with the satisfied
everybody loves a melodrama
and the scandal of a lie -
still you held your arms open for the prodigal daughter
I see my eyes in your eyes through my eyes -
still waters.
Try making one and one make one
twist the shapes until everything comes undone
watch the wizard behind the curtain
the larger than life and the power of seeming certain.
The evil ego and the vice of pride
is there ever anything else that makes us take our different sides?
I wanted everything to feed me.
About as full as I got was of myself
and the upper echalons of mediocrity
after the battle and we're still around
everything once up in the air has settled down
sweep the ashes let the silence find us
a moment of peace is worth every war behind us.
You and me of the 10,000 wars.
I woke up this morning, grey dawn,
with a prayer on my breath.
I lost something precious,
God'll save me from losing myself.
I think I know what's wrong,
I think I know what's wrong.
Now, I met the Queen and I understand
why she closed the door
I'm not making excuses,
But I've been there a few times,
I was knocking on her door.
I think I know what's wrong
I think I know what's wrong
There's a man, he lived in a house,
he had a family of five,
well, he blew up the windows and the doors,
he just couldn't survive.
We've all been removed in one way or another.
We don't know our families, we don't need our brothers.
Pushing the needle too far
Pushing the needle too far
If you wake up in the morning, grey dawn,
with a prayer on your breath,
maybe you lost something precious,
god'll save you, from losing yourself.
I think I know what's wrong.
I think I know what's wrong.
The queen who closed the door the family that lies
people who turn the cat that has died
a boy that od's a girl with a gun
the world on its knees and a band on the run
I think I know what's wrong
Pushing the needle too far.
She won't recover from her losses,
She's not chosen this path, but she watches who it crosses
Maybe move to the right, maybe move to the left
So we can all see her pain she wears like a banner on her chest
And we all say it's sad, and we think it's a shame
And she's called to our attention, but we do not call her name,
The girl with the weight of the world in her hands.
We're busy with our happiness, busy with our plans
I wonder if alone she wants it taken from her hands
But if things didn't get any harder
She might miss her sacred chance to go a consecrated martyr,
The girl with the weight of the world in her hands.
I wonder which saint that lives inside a bead
will grant her consolation when she counts upon her need
It makes us all angry though we feign to care
But who will be the scale to weigh the cross she has to bear,
The girl with the weight of the world in her hands.
"Is the glass half-full or empty?" I ask her as I fill it
She said it doesn't really matter, pretty soon you're bound to spill it.
With the half logic language of the sermon she delivers
And the way she smiles so knowingly at me gives me the shivers
I pull the blanket higher when I'm finally safe at home
And she'll take a hundred with her, but she always sleeps alone,
The girl with the weight of the world in her hands.
© 2006 Indigo Girls. All rights reserved