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LYRICS > BIRDS SAY (2015)

  • 1. The Ancestor

    Go on, bury me
    Under stone or under sea
    Silent pictures
    Keep the fishes company
    There is little else for me now

    But I will find my way
    Out of the dark someday
    Into a crimson yellow sun

    Science fictional
    When the morning comes we will
    Walk for light years
    Watch the nebulas appear
    There is little else for me now

    But I will find my way
    Out of the dark someday
    Into a crimson yellow sun
    I'll follow my baby boy
    He'll be a silver toy
    And we'll count the ages as they're ending

    But I will find my way
    Out of the dark someday
    Into a flash of solar inspiration
    I'll follow my baby boy
    He'll be a silver toy
    And we'll count the ages as they're ending

  • 2. White Horses

    My brother led me outside
    Be quiet, I’ve got a light
    No moon tonight
    Sitting on the ledge outside the second floor
    We could hear the sirens running up the road

    White horses for Chicago
    Black water brings me back home

    October, I lose my mind
    Cross over Wisconsin line
    Apple cider signs
    Looking for a trace of our orchard underground
    Growing in the basements beneath a brand new town

    White horses for Chicago
    Black water brings me back home

    Every year it's about the same
    I'm swimming in my dreams across the lake
    In second place
    Come the winter I’m driving blind
    A tuxedo doing doughnuts on the ice
    Black-and-white on white
    Doesn't matter if I sleep or follow it out of bed
    I know that in the morning it's water in my head

    White horses for Chicago
    Black water brings me back home

  • 3. Harrison Ford

    Dream of chutes and ladders, sleep through two alarms, and when I stumble through the doorway with my hands through the arms of the sweater that the dry cleaner gave me back a size down, I make it to the bus, not a second to spare, but there's freeze-frame traffic till the intersection where I am scheduled for a meeting with a man who looks like Harrison Ford.

    I never can decide
    My everyday’s always
    Everything flies by
    I don’t know why I try

    He says, "Where have you been? I've been waiting all day." I say, "With all due respect, I'm only six minutes late." He doesn't say a thing, just nods and pulls out a sword. I match him blow for blow, counter-parry and dodge, but as the battle wears on, we're getting along. He knocks the sword from my hands, says: “Congratulations, you’ve got the job."

    All the bright stars in the sky
    I can never hold on to,
    I can’t let lie

    I never can decide
    My everyday’s always
    Everything flies by
    I don’t know why I try

    Harrison and I are on a bird he built out of old sedans, balloons, and duct tape. Projected in the cabin, there's an agent he calls "The Wolf". She never shows her face. Her voice as big as a house, she says, “Burn your things and meet me on the roof in an hour." I think I need to tell my landlord that I’m gonna be late with the rent.

    All the bright planets that hang in the air
    Never fall down
    Or float away

    I never can decide
    My everyday’s always
    Everything flies by
    I don’t know why I try

  • 4. Clay & Cast Iron

    Clay and cast-iron, rum-colored silver sunglasses
    White gold, sapphire, and apricot soap
    French leather purses and saris with painted-on flowers
    The smell of old cedar and jasmine perfume

    Fig trees, bottles of milk, and sewing machines
    The ring Baba gave you that you used to leave by the sink

    I gave you away

    You told me you take your Darjeeling black with a scone
    And, "Always remove your shoes in a home."
    That I was your shadow and keeper of secrets and standards
    "A gentleman's only as good as his word."

    Ice-skating in Kansas City, Crown Center alight
    I said I’d be there in a minute
    I stayed on the ice

    I gave you away

  • 5. Go Back

    We were always on our way
    Rolling up our sleeves
    Ever moving forward

    In the tracks where we lived our simple lives
    Kept our blinders on
    Eyes to the horizon

    I know I’m no doctor but I know
    You can’t live in the past
    But the only way to go is to go back

    And return to who we were
    Before we disappeared
    Into the thick of big ideas

    Now we can see the sweeping view
    But we’re waiting out the storm
    Stuck under the awning

    I know I’m no doctor but I know
    You can’t live in the past
    But the only way to go is to go back

    Into everglades
    Greener yesterdays
    Skip the stones away
    Go back to the start
    Photos in the darkroom before they fade

    So we hold to who we are
    Even into the arc
    Beyond our furthest edges

    To a world full of strange and towering skies
    And a chance to choose in time
    To set out on our own way

    I know I’m no doctor but I know
    You can’t live in the past
    But the only way to go is to go back

  • 6. My Gal, My Guy

    My gal she’s the bluest ocean, she
    Waits under the bluest sky for me
    I belong to her
    When I’m in the water
    Some folks towel dry but I don’t bother

    Down we go into the City, oh
    Mount Kisco into the City, oh no
    Everybody's there
    Cozy as a cab fare
    I’m just gonna jump out for some fresh air

    I wake up alone
    Is it today or is it tomorrow?
    I put on my feet
    Walk out the door into a busy street

    (ooh) The bluest sea
    (ooh) New York City
    (ooh) My gal and me
    (ooh) …

    My guy he's the brightest baby grand
    Finds all of the brightest things he can
    Violet indigo
    Leaves them on my pillow
    Some call it a sham but I just find it so...

    Oh, the places we could take some time
    All the places we could spend some quality time
    Let’s go overseas
    Let’s go to the movies
    Everything looks better in old cities

    I wake up alone
    Am I in Amsterdam or Tokyo?
    I put on my feet
    Walk out the door into a busy street

    (ooh) Bright baby grand
    (ooh) New Amsterdam
    (ooh) My guy, my man
    (ooh) …

    (ooh) Indigo sky
    (ooh) My love and I
    (ooh) My gal, my guy

    I wake up alone
    Is it today or is it tomorrow?
    I put on my feet
    Walk out the door into a busy street

  • 7. Birds Say

    Don’t know what the birds say
    Don't know what the birds
    Listen to them all day
    Nothing sounds like words

    Don't know if the colors
    Look the same to you
    Maybe you see white
    The way that I see blue

    Birds don't know what you say
    Birds don't know what you
    Might as well just say
    Whatever comes to you

    I don’t know where time goes
    Don’t know where the time

  • 8. The God of Loss

    My father was a carpenter
    My mother she died young
    I’m the eldest of my brothers
    You’re the trouble in my blood
    Trouble in my blood

    I swore that I’d stay humble
    Like my father was before
    He built the home I live in
    Of sand and mud and smoke
    Sand and mud and smoke

    Yes, we will leave here without a trace
    Take a new name and an old shape
    I’ll be no outlaw, no renegade
    Just your faithful god of loss

    So meet me by the river
    On a boat-shaped piece of earth
    We press our bones together
    And the spider does its work
    With flakes of garlic
    And petals from a rose
    If it’s small enough to carry
    You and I can call it home
    You and I can call it home

    Yes, we will leave here without a trace
    Take a new name and an old shape
    I’ll be no outlaw, no renegade
    Just your faithful god of loss

  • 9. Water Rose

    It started on the patio
    Of the back bar where we used to go
    The garden sank, the water rose
    A midnight swim in our best clothes

  • 10. Do You Ever Live?

    Are you adrift? Are you
    Hands at 10 and 2? Are you the spinning wheel
    As it starts to reel?

    Or the tallship on a summer lawn?
    The tiller yaws, the ripple moving blade to blade
    Makes a figure eight

    Only, only time, only time will tell if you’re the sea itself
    Or an echoing shell

    Do you ever live?

    Are you someone else?
    Are you someone else or is someone else you?
    Oh, what can you do

    If you’re the only passenger?
    You’ve come from where you’re coming to, but there may be
    An unraveling seam

    Wake up, low-angle sun, ivy runners have begun
    To climb the starboard walls
    And they start to call:

    Do you ever live?

    Only, only love
    Only love will show us where we have to go

    Set off into the vale
    Make your way into the trail of intersecting shoots
    One of which is you

    Do you ever live?

  • 11. She's All Around

    Rain on the pasture is a drug for the land
    Ground and water running thick as the blood of a man
    Down to the Bluestone, where the house used to be
    Now the weeds and the wildflowers all have families to feed

    And she's all around you now

    The December after was enough to convince, when
    In our heavy winter jackets we slipped under the fence
    And into cathedrals of cedar and pine
    Even when we lost her, she was all we could find

    And she's all around you now

    The new year comes well before you think it will
    Rushes in and dries out, needs time to refill
    Three kinds of life, all sights to be seen
    The end and the beginning and the evergreen

    She's all around you now

  • 12. Volcano Sky

    I'm going up the volcano sky is calling
    Old as the earth is, the mountains keep on falling
    Out of reception and I’m not sure how to follow
    Lines and the colors on the ground all running all over
    I'm going up over lakes and over mini car lots
    Up over breakfast table conversations open as a notebook

    Would you believe?

    Would you rely on the scientific method?
    Often a thing falls apart the closer up you inspect it
    I'm going up to a place where no one ever gets hurt
    She's in the voicemail in my pocket as I float above the woods in a t-shirt

    Would you believe?
    Would you?

  • 13. Good For You

    I was a river out in West Virginia
    The Greenbrier Valley guided me on
    And I reached out in all directions
    And I tried to hold you in my arms

    And at the bottom of a deep caldera
    I saw the fading Oregon light
    And I felt a comfort in the darkness
    Even as it kept me up all night

    I want to be good for you

    Oh, I was happiness and I was sorrow
    Down on that old South Boundary line
    And what will I become tomorrow?
    Maybe everything will be alright
    I don’t want to keep you up all night

    I want to be good for you

    I stood above the Rocky Mountains
    Where Colorado touches New Mexico
    And I could see a hundred miles, but
    I was many thousand miles from home