Lyrics

Album: Rain and Rivers

Bottleneck Blues

The song that I wrote on the back of the ship,

sounds just like a suicide note that Sylvia Plath would have written to poor Virginia Wolfe

well it looks pretty good dressed up in them chords, but a song is poem, is a heart floor

the best ones write where others, they fear to go

Watchin’ her sing along to songs she knows

and all that I could do, all that I could say, all that i could do

was let her pray

All is quiet on the western bank of the Ganges river and the deep blue veins of India

where I write my letters home

and I know damn well they wont make it close

it’s the bottleneck blues of a southern ghost

that comes right out of this busted radio

Watchin’ her sing along to songs she knows

No love could land lock me, but your love

A Line in the Sand

Blood is frozen where it stands , you’re holdin’ your own insides in

and I’m sorry, yes I am

but it was you who forced my hand, some young gun fighter on the lam

and I’m sorry, yes I am…

Oh your heart was a reckless, wounded, lonesome dove

was there nothing that i could have done to keep you away from here?

Oh tonight we’ll see oceans where there once were none

in the desert you see what you want, and who’s to say your wrong

We scatter ashes to the wind, we live for god to die in sin

and I don’t know who we look to, maybe god

too much death and too much blood for one young man to fall in love

and I don’t know, maybe Mark Twain, maybe not…

If you poison the vessel do you poison the soul?

(I want to know)

If god made all his demands and drew a line right in the sand

I don’t know where I would…

(where I would stand)

Till My Heart Gives Out…(Mountain Song)

I’m at best with a pen in my hand, or at the helm of a jukebox that’s playin’ Waylon Jennings

as the lap steel sings out through the night, and my drink is letting me down

The reckless abandon of teenage drunk driving, ok..we’ll turn the radio up

and we wont remember, but they won’t forget the rhyme, the reason, the message was sent

and it said “How long till I see my mountains again?”

I said “How long till my heart gives out, and the drinks kick in?”

Well my hero liveth in sleeping bags and railroad cars

on tavern cots and upper drugs

(Ruck Sack Bodhisattva)

Your well earned guitar hands,

Val you know me better than anyone, so what should I do?

Now that the rain is really comin’ down

and your heart is like a freight train on its way out of town

You can take your midnight drives, you can be the last to leave

You can sleep with your boots on, tattoo your heart to your sleeve

it really makes no difference and you knew it all along

it’s the words that you say, not the ones in your songs

Down the Tracks

I remember this house, I remember these walls

I remember climbin’ these stairs up to my room to write my younger songs

I remember this house when it was still a home,

now the picture frames are facing down and the halls echo on and on

It’s a hard days runnin’ when you have to leave

You’ve bet too much to get your money back

So I’ll bury my drink and pay my tab

 and I’ll see you down the tracks

I remember this house when it was still a home

the windows are dark and the family is gone and I’m stretched out on the lawn

“just look at those stars”, they were the same when we were born

the only thing that’s changed is the world below

and the halls echo on and on…

Your Style

 The Devil, well she’s got your eyes

and I love how she was always stoned

I loved you, and I loved your style

and I love how you were always so stoned

I was lost, I was so lost

In the cold, on my own

I was so lost

Another Bar in TX 

Coyotes cross the highway, the wolves of Mexico

and I pray to god they make it across the road

If your sendin’ free drinks my way, it wont get you that far

as I listen to her songs out in the car

All we had was love, all we lacked was mercy

All we had was love, all we lacked was Codein

The devil, he will buy souls, but I’m buyin’ all your drinks

and I hope to god that isn’t what you think

Youre waiting for the check to clear, but the money it comes slow

and a watch it as you’re walking out the door

Another night, Another bar in Texas

Another night, Another night alone

I don’t think that I can take the road… 

Sunday Nights

Sunday night and I’m alone

here it comes, that wrecking ball

a letter for to dress me

I retreat to the kitchen floor

to see you read my effigy

you know that is a blessing

I don’t want to love if I don’t have to

I don’t want to love you if I can get away with it

You wander the campus at night

sleeping in the library

the perfume of the rotting books

and you’d trade all your darkness for light

if it meant a goodnight sleep and you could go on singing

Sing your songs with your sorrows

Tell the girl how you feel for once,

it’s the wood smoke in the attic, it’s the old men who have had it

it’s a cross to bear and love

 Spoils of War

Shelter the songwriters, with their petti coats and taps

rollin’ their smokes in a thick wood outside of Concord, Mass

They know not the spoils of war

or the comfort of a passenger car

no, they walk the tracks

The captain’s heart was never in the war,

it’s those romantic boys that followed his sword

The captain has left the battlefield tonight

he’s sent too many boys out there to die

The fabled double Bourbons of a drunk novelist,

he’s the martyr of American Night

well he pissed in the river last night

Publish or perish, he knows the score

and he watches those girls as they walk out the door

and into the night

Come on Lord, down through valley

Come on and take me out to the sea

Come on boys, man the torpedos!

I’ll give em’ hell before they get to me

The Riverbed

There was a girl back in my town

and she would pull the stars down low

she’d leave you dancin’

There were nights I was on my own

and I would brave the highways

for the road was lonesome

Oh the river was rushin’ down!

My veins were creek water cold,

she made a snow drift of my heart

she left me down low

The city waits for your return

she wakes her avenues and stirs

she opens up her arms

 Tributaries

We walked it down to the edge of the bridge

we both held hands and we both slit our wrists

Watch as it carries blood out to the sea

you might lose it all girl, but you wont lose me

We drank the bottle, the bottle drank us

winter was coming, you were sleeping it off

John Berryman wrote it all down

you might lose it all girl, but you wont be found

I was in love…

We were staying at Hotel Chevalier

Paris in summer, what more could you say?

I was too drunk to get us out of this town

you might lose it all girl, but you wont be found

I was in love…

Your Existential Hero

There were those nights, there were those long nights

alcohol into the blood, the blood into the sink

baby I will carry you, if you will hold on to me

I aint no ghost, I aint no ghost yet

your initials carved deep in my bone

drink a bottle of wine at a mom and pop’ graveyard

and wander the rows all alone

But you’ve got me wrong, you’ve got me all wrong

if you think that that’s me in them songs

it’s the girl she was, it’s the relationship that won’t be

if that tells you anything

Oh, I have been lovin’ you maybe too long (to stop)

Punches were thrown as we rung in the New Year

a backyard fight, and a black eye

and I watched as they carried you to car

I hope to god you’re alright

But you’ve got me wrong, you’ve got me all wrong

if you think that that’s me in them songs

it’s the hero I was , it’s the villain I might be

if that tells you anything…

The Wolves 

Mary Lee, your ghost is silent

you’re leavin’ me to my own devices

Your records they ring through the halls of a house

that used to me our home

Your side of the bed, now it is cold

there are rooms in this house that I don’t dare to go

I’m drinking this over cause sleepin’ gets old

the spirits in the bottle are the only I know

The House where we lived, I’ll burn it down

The Tree that we carved, I’ll cut it down

The Records you love, I’ll throw them out

for you girl

Bury me in the prose that you wrote

the wolves they sing from the woods to the country road

cause they know, as I know

life is a howl

the moon, it will bring the life of the living back out

Don’t Give Up The Ghost Too Soon

She Will Find Her Way Back Home…..