1. |
||||
Rollin' through Sonora, Rosa, with you in my head
to lay atop the Spanish moss, my cheek on your breast again
the boy you fell in love with, he ain't 'round no more
he's dead on the edge of some dry riverbed
And the stray dogs on the highway, they all know what I'd like
to count sundowns and daybreaks, walking towards the fading light
The little girl behind me tells her mother she sees the moon
cut from dry paper in the sky
lo' pollos, and dogs in the dark brown dirt
her baby brother kicks my seat and cries
Her collar stiff against her neck, Rosa tied her coat
Chico laid his denim down, a blanket on the stone
Chico dreamt of her warm brown kiss while Mississippi fog drifted south
Rosa pulled her collar tight, November snow fallin' down
The train rolls through the ghosts and shotgun shacks while Bozo Texino smiles on
Me and Johnny, well, we watch it pass
While you're sprawled in the sunlight on the lawn
|
||||
2. |
My Bestfriend
05:29
|
|||
I don't know much for truth
but I burned a red candle to the ground
I forgot about it 'til the morning light
I dreamt about you even though we've never shared more than a few words
my bestfriend fell in love with you
and you didn't even know
Frenchmen Street on the second day of the year
I held your hand and we ran into the trainyard and made a promise
no one could ever keep
Hazel eyes looking up at me as you climbed the ladder in the middle of the night
you could have fallen down to the snowbanks
three stories below
|
||||
3. |
Rosario
04:42
|
|||
I'm off to be baptized today
in the valley where the grapefruit trees sway
pour the water on my head and say
You're gonna die young, Juan
and you'll do Rosario wrong
Every Tuesday afternoon
I feel the earth beneath me move
The 4:45 southbound drifting snow, rattling away
They lay together there, in the tall grass
and laughed at the things they thought about
"Do you know how lucky we are, to love each other as we do?"
You're gonna die young, Juan
and you'll do Rosario wrong
|
||||
4. |
Lascaux Blues
03:12
|
|||
There is something reverent 'tween the hunter and his quarry
Coulda told you that from the caves at Lascaux
When you're huddled down with your old ex-girlfriend
and I'm out here spinnin' my wheels in the snow
Drivin' seven hours west
in the wrong direction, I guess
to find your favorite waitress
who doesn't care about you
And I lost my daughter to God
And I lost my wife to the Devil, too
No one can help you but Jesus now, but he will if you ask him to.
|
||||
5. |
Panagiota
06:24
|
|||
Panagiota stood beneath the icons her grandmother had saved
when they were fleeing Crete, and all her grandmother feared were the earthquakes again
and when the strung electric lines 'cross his view of the Aegean
he fasted for ten days, moved to the country, dropped some acid cut with Ritalin
And I found an old rope down in the cellar
it was coiled and brown by the lobster traps
and that strong old birch tree that hung out my window
in the Nor'easter it snapped
The sweet annie grows tall by the abandoned narrow gauge railroad tracks
The night they walked across, she kept it to herself but worried about getting back
she took a candle out of her coat pocket and lit it down in the creosote
it flickered and it danced in the cold north wind at their backs
and the black night islands smoked
The mainsail stretched out wide in a broad reach
as the twilight danced away
and the moonshine filled my outstretched hands and stole my thoughts away
it's November now and I don't hear coyotes crying on the dirt road
all the orange leaves fall down and turn to foxes that I see run past on my way home
and now when I sit down by the trestle and the moon light house and the sea
in my right pocket I've a candle and a lighter, in my left an icon of me
"hey, that's no way to say goodbye", she said
I'm not that guy
I don't believe tenderness is weak
but I just can't seem to cry
|
||||
6. |
Châteaubriant
02:45
|
|||
And it's you in the meadows at Châteaubriant, stinging nettle in your hand, daisies in your hair
and it's you sitting cross-legged in my room looking at me from down on the jute
asking me to dare
but I can't look back or hold your hand
or write my name in the sand
but I can look at you across the canal's edge
and offer you an easy laugh
She said I would wake up with a shotgun barrel in my face if I decided to give up the chase and sleep out in the fields
like a thousand gypsy boys who came this way before me, to carry the Virgin to the sea, with nothing left to steal
And Elston Gunn and Manitas de Plata together in a cafe in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer
He pours himself a glass and says "the next time we cross paths, I'll offer you an easy laugh"
|
||||
7. |
Nonesuch River Song
03:34
|
|||
Well, I dreamed you got a package from me
40 miles wide and a centimeter deep
I slipped and fell and broke all my teeth on the icy pavement
You opened it up and looked at me
but my toothless grin was all I could see
but I knew in my heart that the box was empty
and I don't know what the hell that meant
But in the Nonesuch River with you
it all starts to come unglued
waiting around is more than all that I can do
in the Nonesuch River with you
Well, I swore to myself that this was the year I wouldn't get sick or cry a single tear
but I guess I broke that promise because I've been coughing up a lung
As far as tears go you got different kinds, different kinds of noses and different eyes
As for me I ain't got too many left inside, that ship has already sunk
in the Nonesuch River with you
crawling up from the blues
asking myself if I ever had a clue
crossing the Nonesuch River with you
Well the Colorado's muddy past a certain point
and the Mississippi's filled with girls and boys
The Tijuana River's run nearly dry, it ain't hardly there
The Piscataqua's got a big green bridge
Snake's got the ashes of Damien
The sunset looking west o'er the Hudson, it's almost too much to bear
But the Nonesuch River with you
you know it don't run true
but it runs to the ocean, wide and blue
The Nonesuch River with you
|
||||
8. |
||||
The things that I see through the wisps of your hair
in the morning in front of me
pages will turn; cities will burn
and fall like ashes to the sea
and I saw the ice plant and the old railroad tie
on the February night that he died
and I swore I heard the last words she said
in the train whistle past Oceanside
The things that I see through the wisps of my hair
looking down at you on your porch
white light looking right through me
in your bedroom now, Easter morn
|
Streaming and Download help
If you like Chico States, you may also like:
Bandcamp Daily your guide to the world of Bandcamp