1. |
Love Will Heal You
04:10
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in my body there's a battle
it goes back before my time
twitches in my wrists and fingers
it runs on my mother's side
in my rage i chased my woman
crazy with a kitchen blade
when i came to i was howling
through her wild tears she spoke my name
said love will heal you
i used to be a prophet
i'm nothing anymore
i'm a headline in ohio
behind bars for being drunk and poor
the past is dead beneath us
everyone's been someone else
maybe i could wake up different
build a heaven over all this hell
and love will heal me
i retrace all my wandering
cross the country of my youth
broken with a beard and bottle
i go searching out a former truth
i've always been a pilgrim
i've got no place left to run
and the roads all shine like serpents
twisting in the desert sun
no i won't give up believing
there's a future to be had
there are good seeds still to blossom
from the dead soil of this land
i watch the canyons turn to chapels
hear the creekbed talk in tongues
and the sundown spreads like stained glass
there's a voice a-calling from above
says love will heal you
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2. |
Jesus and Jesse James
03:09
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there's a house i've dreamt in the distance
through the mist i can make it out clear
where i will return as a stranger
or a son lost for so many years
in a town where a girl rides a stallion
singing bout jesus and jesse james
she calls for their justice to pour down
on the earth like a merciful rain
and a boy dreams of making his fortune
he's all piss and vinegar still
the future before him lies open
as the prairies where nothing's been built
i know that it's only a vision
but there's nights when it seems almost true
like the sunbeams that paint my horizon
or the gray of a vanishing moon
but a woman is stumbling the alleys
i swear i don't recognize
like the specter of some looming ruin
with blue flames aglow in her eyes
there's a house i've dreamt in the distance
through the mist i can make it out plain
where i will return as a father
bent on fighting til its been reclaimed
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3. |
Wildfire
03:54
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make your way up highway 5
round bakersfield the citrus thrives
blossoms swell at wintertime
you'll taste it in the air
migrants and their families came
heard the promise all the same
water glistens like champagne
work is plenty there
see that dusk bleed over the pacific
feel the breeze running free along the beach
i have set my mind to disregard the limits
like a wildfire marching through the trees
gangsters on the growers pay
like angels guard the orchard gate
cities built from cardboard crates
sprouting from the dust
where fathers kiss their daughters' heads
and prostitute them tent to tent
there's cries from fruitbox basinets
the air is crisp and lush
see that dusk bleed over the pacific
feel the breeze running free along the beach
like a new star sparkles in the distance
there's a future fast asleep in every seed
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4. |
Great Chorus
04:33
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i heard a great chorus
i joined that refrain
it was a ballad of mercy
it was joy it was pain
it was a multitude pulsing
like one single heartbeat
it was the plea of a beggar
it was a babbling priest
it was a hollering rich man
who owned nothing but fear
it was two lovers whispering
in each other's ears
it was the dance of the unborn
countless kicking feet
it was faith in the future
it was death in the street
i heard a great chorus
i joined that refrain
it was a song of the people
it was blood mixed with rain
my dream keeps recurring
a voice cries out from the flames
there's a little girl burning
she never gets saved
hear that howling atlantic
i swell with the tide
where possibility flickers
in that pure morning light
i heard a great chorus
i joined that refrain
it was hope it was hatred
it was glory and shame
it was the groan of creation
it was birth and decay
i heard a great chorus
i joined that refrain
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5. |
Don't Let Me Go
03:00
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the future is a pair of desperate eyes staring back at me
fingers tugging gentle like a little child at my sleeve
and i try to hear her whisper
bend down to pull her close
please don't let me go
my lover my disease my mother and the holy ghost
they hover in my sleep same face but with different clothes
and each one tries to teach me what it means to be alone
please don't let me go
my soul is a story that i tell myself
an outlaw ballad where the thief means well
it's never been mine it's nothing i could own
please don't let me go
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6. |
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7. |
Nora
03:15
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i watch the flophouse girls like something from a dream
i study all their bodies floating ghostlike with morphine
poor men rolling with them like the sea beneath the stars
still i hear the chiming of those bracelets round their arms
nora
i see the whole world being born anew
i believe in peace the way that i believe in you
the mystery the miracle burning in my blood
breaking shackles building monuments to harmony and love
nora
you wander through the twilight where my dreams turn dark and wild
lend me all your lullabies i'll sing them to my child
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8. |
Old Man
04:29
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in my hometown they sell postcards of a lynching
my old man was there
in the night i find him smiling
waving his winchester in the air
like the country crawling westward
he was young and hungry in those days
like limestone and gypsum the past is still mixed up in our clay
i was born into a big house
my daddy owned the land above the oil
he'd say nothing made him prouder
than the woman and the children that he spoiled
lost his mansion to a kerosene fire
lost my mother to disease
i drifted like the ashes from the blaze that brought him crashing to his knees
see those stars above the heartland
i've crossed this country just as many times
my clothes became a costume
my voice became a choir multiplied
my song went on without me
i felt myself dissolve into the land
but if i can be redeemed i believe the soil also can
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9. |
I Woke Up
03:07
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i woke up
i was weightless
carried on the autumn breeze
set to drifting
through generations
like i was reborn
like i was free
i see a little child
her eyes are honest
i see a cobra coiled at her feet
i see holy orphans
searching for a land of promise
scattered like stars like sand like seeds
i see a garden
the gate stands open
i see the lowly enter first
i see a temple
built by the bruised and broken
i see a great sword buried in the earth
i woke up
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10. |
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