1. |
In My Young Life
05:00
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In my young life
I’ve known the path
Kept my eyes ahead
In my young life
I’ve known my own pace
I wax and I wane
In my young life
I've known loneliness
More than love
If love I've known at all
I've woken up
Wishing for the touch
Of another’s hand
But it's not just the touch
It's what the touch means
And I know that in order
To engage with another you have to
Be patient, forgetful of all past pain,
And most of all be brave
But I’m none of those things
And so I rise
And let cold water
Run over my hands
I put each foot in front of the other
Day after day
Oh, would that I were equal to the world
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2. |
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Those are the steps that I walk down
Those are the steps that made a sound
Those are the steps that I walk down
Those are the steps that made a sound
Every time I walk those red
Steps a thought went through my head
Every time I walked those red
Steps a thought went through my head
Of you descending the wooden staircase
A Dixie cup right in your hand
And how I caught your wandering gaze
Swore I’d remember it all my days
Instead I only think about
How I used to think about you
Now I only think about
How I used to think about you
When I found out you knew my name
It was something simple, something vain
When I found out you knew my name
It was something simple, something vain
I ran home just to write it down
To keep the feeling, keep it around
I ran home just to write it down
To keep the feeling, keep it around
Sometimes I’ll go back and read
Of the futile heart of that other me
Sometimes I’ll go back and read
Of the futile heart of that other me
And I only think about
How I used to think about you
Now I only think about
How I used to think about you
You walked tall like a dancer would
I tried to find you if I could
You walked tall like a dancer would
I tried to find you if I could
But I didn’t need to try
You were always in my eye
Stacks, the grass, and the wooden stairs
Like as not you would be there
I came to think of you as my
Guardian angel from on high
I came to think of you as my
Guardian angel sent from high
Now I only think about
How I used to think about you
Now I only think about
How I used to think about you
Years past now since you’ve been gone
Then came a daydream like the dawn
Your skirt caught the grass we shuffled through
Dampened the hemline with the dew
Now this image has replaced
Everything of the older days
Memory is not a choice
Your copper hair, your lovely voice
But in the dust, the room, the broken chair
The heater blows out the driest air
A poster falls from off the wall
It comes flooding back, it all
Now I only think about
How I used to think about you
Now I only think about
How I used to think about you
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3. |
The Thinnest Ice
04:40
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There is no seeker of my will
Nor justifier of the way I feel
None to check that I’ve had my fill
Above all else, know thyself
Above all else, know thyself
Think of the parable
The parable
Of the thinnest ice
That can hold a man
What’s on the other side of sorrow?
What features will my face have tomorrow?
Trees grow back after the fire
If not the ponderosa pine
Then the Gambel oak
Think of the strength
The strength
Of the broken link
Fallen from the chain
There is some strength
In a broken link
Fallen from the chain
When we ran out of trail
Parted ways for our own strategies
You retraced every step that you’d made
I pushed on by sense and by sight
I make my way by sense and by sight
Think of the parable
The parable
Of the thinnest ice
That can hold a man
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4. |
Gravel Ground
05:44
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Buried coins in the gravel ground
What is lost and never found
Daddy pours the concrete down
To anchor the swing set in the ground
Buried coins in the gravel ground
What is lost is lost
Easter morning my sister and me
Bunnies melted in the trees
Stagger blind with a donkey’s tail
The birthday boys scream and flail
Easter morning my sister and me
Bunnies melted in the trees
A death scatter is easy to do
A rubber band and my aim is true
Black widows on the window pane
Legs crumpled in sad decay
A death scatter’s too easy to do
A rubber band and my aim is true
Garden hose keeps the desert at bay
Listen to what the songbirds say
Cats moved in and the songs were gone
The preening pride, the feathers blown
Garden hose keeps the desert at bay
Remember what the songbirds used to say
Buried coins in the gravel ground
What is lost but never found
Daddy finds the corpses in the morning
Dig it deep, far from the coyote’s paw
Daddy finds the corpses in the morning
Dig it farther than the coyotes, Pa.
Buried coins in the gravel ground
What is lost is always lost
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5. |
(first quarter))
01:11
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6. |
Face Again
04:05
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You never know
When you see them go
If you’ll ever
See their face again
Remember
The crossing guard
Featured in
The paper
For his good works
Two weeks later
He was struck and killed
As if god
Had taken notice
Of this man
You never know
When you see them go
If you’ll ever
See their face again
I want to ask
While I’ve got you
While you’re here
Have you ever
Ever noticed
Ever really noticed?
The elemental detrimental shake of everything
Flails and flops and bats around
Like a hawk with just one wing
Can you get the boss around
And make him stand and sing
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7. |
((full))
01:16
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8. |
All the Leaving
04:32
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I know you don’t think about it
You don’t dwell or so it seems
I know when you’ve gone and lain down
I know that you sleep so sound
You walked until you saw the water
You balked at the end of the ledge
How long til you turned and went home?
How many more bets did we hedge?
All that’s lost and gone away
There will be a finer day
All that’s lost and gone away
There will be a finer day
Bay windows blocked by flat screens
Rooms filled with a new kind of light
But always the same old darkness
When eyes close at the end of the night
This song is all the leaving
This song is the flash of the knife
This song is a baby teething
This song is fire to melt the ice
All that’s lost and gone away
There will be a finer day
All that’s lost and gone away
There will be a finer day
No no no no no no
No no no no no no
No no no no no no
No no no no no no
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9. |
((last quarter)
01:03
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10. |
Prayer Flags
06:14
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I can see the prayer flags they fly
Papa’s scarf is tied up high
On the ridge and waving there
Blowing in the Himalayan air
I dress in Chicago
And I prepare to go outside
Into winter wondering
If it compares
To Himalayan air
On the couch with Nana
I sat singing songs
She’d worn down a spot after a while
Shifting her feet on the carpet pile
And I’ve got worries of my own
Though not nine children grown
Still I’ve paced a heavy mile
Wearing my own spot on the carpet pile
Lately, I’ve been thinking about going home
Lately, I’ve been wandering out alone
Lately, I’ve been writing down memories
Like stills from a video
Of wind blowing through the trees
Grandpa’s desk and the chairs that he’d made
We left out in the rain
Every time I sat in one
It was a little more worn out by the sun
I used to say my one living memory
Was him sitting with Granny
But it’s now been so overexposed
Like after having looked for too long at the sun
And lately I’ve been writing down memories
Of my family before they fade away from me
My family’s things are getting lost and old
My family’s things are what is left to hold
And they fade with use the same as memory
So I write and write down everything I can recall
Like stills from a video of wind blowing in the fall
The trees bleaching out and losing all their leaves
The film stops, the image blurs permanently
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11. |
(new)
00:39
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12. |
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The end is sweet and near
The end is sweet and not far off
The end is sweet and near
The end is sweet and not far off
I like it here, at the end,
It’s peaceful and quiet
There is nothing but the rustling
Of the plastic on the windows
Spring had been knocking
Snowmelt weeping from the eaves
Tonight it’s all gone, full retreat,
And we’re headed for a deep freeze
The heater cycles on
The house around me breathes
Life and all it has brought
Has got me on my knees
Then I open up my computer screen
Scroll through my hometown news
And see in the public memorial feed
A name I thought I’d never see
From his family’s words
I surmised a suicide
“He found the peace that he’d sought”
He dropped his life like a heavy rock
No, no that’s not me
That’s not my story
So I won’t tell it
To myself any more
Come morning I wake up early to
Leave this dark and lonely room
In which I’ve learned to borrow
In which I’ve waged my sorrows
Cermak Prairie to Eighteenth
Through the infrastructural labyrinth
It’s a misty day on the frozen lake
A misty day on the frozen lake
The sun rising over Michigan
Burns the mist away and it’s day again
Forgive me my shallowness
And my hard-hearted callowness
The end is sweet and near
The end is sweet and not far off
The end is sweet and near
The end is sweet and not far off
And I think of what you’d said,
It’s raging through my head,
“All you’ll see are shadows
If you never face the light.
All you’ll see are shadows
If you never face the light.
All the world’s in shadow
If you turn away from the light.”
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