The end already came here and we tunneled through the earth, In the basement with the lights out to The Good Life and The Cure With the Geiger counter crying and your breathing keeping time Learned to think with just my body and to move with just my mind This used to be a commune, this used to be a farm A winding way north of the train tracks and south of the liquor store Where I caught you with a bottle and a ship carved in your arm With your banjo and your bare feet and your sadness like a stone And always so alone Nobody loved you like they should Son of a gun, day of the dead Hand on my heart and your name in my head So your sister called me crying from halfway across the states She chose the dying of the desert over the dying of the plains Said New Mexico was different but the sunlight was the same And the phone was near on fire and she couldn’t say your name And so we lay you in the garden and you sprung up like a weed Where we’d scattered red tomatoes and spilled morning glory seeds All of us tripping in the overgrowth and dying in the brush All agreed we would have laid ourselves beside you if we could And if I could, I would I would have loved you like I should Son of a gun, day of the dead, Hand on my heart and your name in my head Hand on my heart, And sometimes I still hear you calling me, with some bad dream you can’t forget Son of a gun, go back to sleep Kind of the world when you’re crying to me That you were never any good Fighting your mind, king of the world I’m on my way so just stay on the line Did we come back here for each other, did we come back here for us Or did the magnets in the city pull the iron in our blood? Well I came back here for the living, I came back here for the love For the idea of an ending, for the friendship and the drugs I came back here for the fires that we lit to light us up I came back here for the living, I came back here for the love And just to say it straight, that we all did the best we could Carrying on, under the sun Hands in the soil and a prayer for the waking ones Somebody’s gotta stay behind, carry it on, rise with the sun, ready or not In the name of the ones we love, In the name of the ones we love We stay for the ones we love, if not yourself then you stay for the ones you love And I hope you’re dreaming somewhere good Son of a gun, day of the dead, hand on my heart and your name in my head Hand on my heart and your name in my head credits

I hate your science fiction, I hate your action movies I hate your clothing from the dumpster and your house below the freeway And I’m still standing in the wake of all your schizophrenic madness And you left me at the place where you trailed out beyond language And so I tried to live without you, in the quiet of the forest But the quietness was heavy, and the heaviness reflects you And I hate your loving arms and that your girlfriend took your name And that you still call me when your lonely just to see if I still love you And I love you like the wind that comes in screaming off the lake Woken early in the morning to visions of your face And I love you like the banshee, as she shrieks in the sun She didn’t choose to know the future it’s the code in her blood And I love you like my family, and I love you like my son And I love you like the morning the midnight becomes I hate your science fiction, and the lightness in your step And the trinkets in your pockets and the booze on your breath And how you always look dirty, even when you are clean, And how those lines round your eyes they just cut into me And now my heart feels like metal, and my veins run like rust I had to start loving god cause I can’t love you this much And the last time that I saw you, you were crazier than ever Hadn’t slept in a while, been living outside all winter And you pulled back the plywood And we slept on the floor Dreamt of islands and children and growing old on the shore But we both woke up thirsty, and despising each other You went digging through ashtrays with rough yellow fingers And in the coffeehouse morning we stood by like beggars For nicotine buzzes and glasses of water And I hate your crazy wisdom, and your other-worldly freedom While the rest of us stand still you somehow never stop moving And I love you like my devil, and I love you like my god And I’m not really sure you existed at all I hate your science fiction, and the rhythm in your step And my fingers in your fingers, and the smoke on your breath And I’m still scared of your mindset, I’m still scared of your magic, I’m scared you’ll die at the hands of your horrible habits And I hate that I once knew you, long before all off this started, You read books and played cello, and we camped in the yard Before you started making contact, with those other-worldly forces It was summer, we were kids, with big dreams and round faces

When I think of you I see you, in the meadow, with the sun high, and the wind howling low Picking fruit, arms a-reach And above, the painted dove And below, the olive grove And your father, the Spanish Geppetto, just smiling at me When I think of you I see you, in the attic, you are wind-struck, and I am manic You say you can’t understand my Spanish at all But as I swear that the bed it is a ship And as the sheets they catch the wind You look out my window and proclaim that you see land That you see land, that you see land Steer on straight to a town the people call Murcia, with her skirt full of fruit in the drought and the dust Of the mountain that stands like a statuette, changing her face beneath the sun Throws the light and we look up in wonder She turns to night and we all fall in love with her And I’m wrecked enough as it is… Yeah I’m wrecked enough as it is Remembering when my bed it was a ship And my sheets they caught the wind And you looked out my window and proclaimed that you saw land Cause now my bed is just a bed And my sheets are where I turn and fight and twist Until the morning breaks in like a fist The last time I saw you, you were standing, Up to your ankles, in the Atlantic As I climbed in my silver ship And it rained a million lights As the ocean filled with vessels just like mine And you stood waving me goodbye Missed you so much that I wanted to cry But Gloria no I didn’t, cause I’ve got a feeling I came back to visit See I had a dream we were back in the huerta, in all of her ringing and reaching up And above a crescent moon And below the streets were strewn with dark red fruit… And above a waxing moon, and below the streets a-ruin with dark red fruit So we buried ourselves among the roots Talking in tongues I never use Married ourselves to the growling hum, and man, It was good to be back there with you, ah, la de dum, la da dum

Here I think we all sprung up strange from the drought and then the long acid rain I know we were thirsty as hell so we drank what we could when it fell But now so long after the fall, guess I honestly miss you is all, For your world made of paper and ice and the blue bayonet of your eyes And you look golden and you say you’re doing fine But I remember you as a liquored up and livid Landslide of jailhouse wisdom I remember you, you were 22 and ragged, Run down in the underground I remember you, you were living in the spaces Left by the occupation And I remember you when you said you were moving out You were moving out, you said the territory wears you like a crown You were moving out, said the territory always runs you down And I can’t, its how you’re looking at me You always did make me weak in the knees Then you smile, put your pen to the page And declare your trajectory’s changed And you’re an angel with the sun upon your face, but baby But I remember you as a liquored up and livid Landslide of jailhouse wisdom I remember you, you were 22 and ragged, Run down in the underground I remember you, you were living in the spaces Left by the occupation And I remember you when you said you were moving out You were moving out, you said the territory wears you like a crown You were moving out, said the territory always runs you down And so you flew like a bird in the hot yellow sun, Yeah you flew like a bird in the hot yellow sun, You flew like a bird in the hot yellow sun, So you flew, with your Warsaw wings and your smoking guns And I said I caught a bird in the low yellow wind I said I caught a bird in the slow yellow wind I said I caught a bird that I held to my chest, And it beat like a heart, in the palm of my hand In the palm of my hand, my hand…

Put your hand upon the table, and my hands there beside yours And all the history between us has put a quiver in my voice And you’re asking me how are you? Say, how’ve you been my love, And my words are tiny pebbles, I will spill them one by one I say my heart is awful heavy, I am miles and miles from home So I have made myself a roadmap from the lyrics in your song And I know I give you up and that I look for you again But I get lost each time I try to let the blossom ring you in I have racked my mind for this, but can’t remember what it means I know nothing of that softness, I don’t understand the spring. Now im lying in your bedroom, and the morning time has come In through your paper curtains, the first glimpses of the sun And your room is full of relics, of a girl you used to know Her jewelry on your bedside, her paintings on your wall But now her face is in your pillow, and her coat is on your floor Her head is full of fire, her shoes are by the door, But I see time has come to waltz you off just like time tends to do And you are with your Emily, I with my memories of you Yeah you are with your Emily, and I with my memories of you What am I doing here? It was a long, long night and I was driving down your road And your door was open wide and I knew you weren’t home, Just leaving on the porch light, for any lost soul in the dark Yeah it was a long long night With these memories hitting hard Swimming in the deepest space, where I am wrecked but I’m alright And if this never comes again, it was the best thing in my life Swimming in the deepest space where I am wrong in all I am And if this never comes again you were the truest thing I had Remembering the statuettes, on the gray streets of Madrid You came at me with all your love and I turned into one of them Remembering the statuettes on the gray streets of Madrid You came at me with all you had, and I turned into one of them Remember your emotions ran like foreign venom in your veins Kicking at the bed until you finally found a way to fall asleep Remember how my fever ran, in the days after you’d gone Cause even as my mind it wouldn’t say, my body knew what it had done Swimming in the deepest space Swimming in the deepest space, the cosmic mess behind my eyes And if this never comes again, well it was real and it was right So I’ll write you in my lyrics, I will sing you in my songs Move west among the sagebrush, you’ll stay east amid the moss And I’ll find some quiet solace, in the way that all things end, But I will say there was a love that just burned brighter than the rest Yes I will know I found a love that just burned brighter than the rest And I will dream we are together, for our final earthly breath But it would seem I’m cursed to live a thousand lifetimes until then And someday I’ll be as ancient as I’ve felt since I was young And I will know that all my memories, are just a story I was told

The river rose is wasted and everybody’s swimming And everybody’s singing carry on, carry on And harry’s upstairs sucking nitrous oxide from a can And watching river roses twine up both his hands And he says he misses Arizona and he misses Montezuma And he’s gonna leave new England just as fast as he can Says whether I go winging like a swallow or crawling like a rodent the rivers gonna pull me back again And New England’s gonna drown me, gonna freeze me up and drown me New England gonna set the living shiver in my bones, See I’ve been drinking since I got here and I got here 27 years ago And no matter how the cards show their faces And no matter how the dice hit the table And no matter how the women lift their skirts a little higher We’re all tired and getting older every year And I can’t reckon why they spend their money here Because the river rose is wasted and everybody’s swimming And everybody’s singing carry on carry on the river rose is wasted and everybody’s swimming and everybody’s singing carry on and last week is was my birthday, the balloon is in the corner holding onto nothing and floating shoulder high the balloon says happy birthday, I can almost hear it singing happy birthday harry, happy birthday harry And no matter how the cards show their faces And no matter how the dice hit the table And no matter how the women lift their skirts a little higher We’re all tired and getting older every year And I can’t reckon why they spend their money here Caroline’s a lady but she’s bad at conversation, Can’t get her to say nothing more than hey and how are you And she’s fine, she says I’m fine, with a river in her eyes Can’t say nothing or my baby’s gonna cry So we go drinking from the bottle and floating down the river And swimming through the evening till the evening turns to black And she sings just like a sparrow when she’s on the verge of leaving But she’s quiet as the snow when she comes back Yeah she sings just like a sparrow when she’s on the verge of leaving, But she’s quiet as the snow when she comes back And lately there’s a lift inside my limping And lately there’s a swagger in my sadness And lately there’s a hollow on my sunniest of days Because the river rose has bound me to this place Yeah the river rose has bound me to this place And the river rose has bound me to the slowly churning water, The river rose has bound me to this place And no matter how the cards show their faces And no matter how the dice hit the table And no matter how the women lift their skirts a little higher We’re all tired and getting older every year And I can’t reckon why they spend their money here Because the river rose is wasted and everybody’s swimming And everybody’s singing carry on carry on the river rose is wasted and everybody’s swimming and everybody’s singing carry on

I loved you because you were a stranger, and you smiled like the sun had got stuck in your teeth And you smiled all crooked-like up at me And I smiled all crooked-like back I loved you because I didn’t know you And you would never be mine for to have and to hold I loved you because you had a lover I loved you because I had a lover as well, yes I did, yes I did But when you sang to me, you flowed seamlessly, Through your pleasure as well as your pain But me I am made out of stitches I sewed on my own In dark stations waiting for the train And singing for change, la de da, la de da, la da da da da m la de da, la de da, la da da da da la de da, la de da, la da da da da mmm mmm mm mmm… I loved you cause we met in a city, That I’d never been to before, I loved you cause we met under dim yellow light On a happenstance night in the park But when you spoke to me, you swam endlessly On a string round the ring of the world And I followed behind getting caught in the twine That was winding its way round the words, thinking, My tongue is a curse. My tongue is the worst. My tongue is a curse… the worst And so silently, we swam endlessly, on a string round the ring of the park And when the lights went to sleep it was just you and me Glowing lucid and blue in the dark And when you turn to go I’ll be back on my own, Just the wind pulling me piece by piece as it blows But I was made out of stitches I sewed on my own In strange cities I moved to alone, I moved to alone, la de da, la de da, la da da da da m la de da, la de da, la da da da da la de da, la de da, la da da da da mmm mmm mm mmm… la de da, la de da, la da da da da m la de da, la de da, la da da da da la de da, la de da, la da da da da mmm mmm mm mmm…

There’s a man collecting bottles at the bottom of my street Which would be fine but it is 2 and I would like to go to sleep But he’s pacing with his grocery cart and howling in the dark With his prayers and incantations of the north And in china town I made friends with the opium smokers They were all fatalistic, but they held close together Over chasing the dragon and sleeping in the park They said the winters are long here, and the summers are short And we go wrecking our bodies to try and stay warm And we’re martyred each year for the north We are martyred each year for the north Ooos My grandpa was a mechanic from the lowlands of Nebraska And in the army his plane crash-landed outside of Alaska And they sent up their flares till there were holes in the snow And they shivered in their boots till their bones nearly broke They waited ten days in the cold And that last night they built a temple out of things that they’d collected They wrote letters to their families with what strength they had left Then they prayed for the living and they prayed for the dead Then they prayed to the gods of the north He said the tundra was worse than the war And help did arrive but his debts never died And his body belongs to the north. Ooos Jesus was a family man before he went mad, He built a 3-story home in the Old North End And he painted it yellow, and he painted it red Sometimes with a steady and then a trembling hand Some days he just lay in his bed But his wife began to see it when the moon was full and bright Jesus couldn’t settle down, Jesus sorcerer of the night Would go pacing like an alley cat and howling in the dark With his prayers and incantations of the north Ooos

I don’t think you ever fully leave Lincoln No this city’s somehow tethered to your sleeve And no matter what you say about this tired, simple place, It seems to me you never fully leave, Yeah you always come back to Nebraska, Where the cornfields are growing to the sky And your restless feet may take you many places, But your dreams all pull you back here in the night And you’ll try to make your name in many cities When all you really wants a simple life And you’ll fall in love with true and wild women But in the end you’ll take a sweet Midwestern wife And I am not the sweet Midwestern type No I am not the sweet Midwestern type But after driving for miles down I80 I start to feel a little more at peace Dreaming of tiny houses on the edges of this town And the train whistle that sings us back to sleep And I start to think I never really left Lincoln Even when the road was all that I could see Cause no matter what I said when I was blowing in the wind About rambling along and living free This city left its porch light on for me

Thanks for loving me madly And treating me right I started that book you gave me and you’ve been on my mind Are you still trying to quit smoking, have you been eating enough Are you still painting your pictures, are you still writing your book Do you ever see peter, do you ever see sam Hows your father and brother, hows your mother been? I miss the way that you smile, and the shape of your eyes And the way they catch fire when you argue and theorize And I wish I could see you now I bet your scrappier than ever in your perfect misadventure Bet your beautiful and breaking down Kicking ass just like a lady, bet the boys are going crazy, Oh you priestess of my prairie town Where we’re born beneath the thunder and we’re willing victims of her Of her fingers and her funnel clouds Here we’re used to stormy weather, here we stand our ground together In the sirens and the screaming out To go on and wreck the bar scene, and the coffee shop on south street And the reasons why I had to leave Ive been remembering Lincoln in visions and dreams Like when I feel the fall weather, or on nights I cant sleep I see capital pkwy, I see Washington street I see the paper cicadas on the cottonwood trees I see myself going crazy and talking to ghosts I see you coming to see me, at the hospital I see you when you were 16 and you wanted to die Crashing like a tornado through that fragile fence line im so glad you got better, im so glad you’re alright im so glad I got better, im so glad I’m alright I just wish you could see me now, because my hair has gotten longer And my voice has gotten stronger and I think you’d be proud Because we made it to our twenties, it was anything but easy in this missed connection town All our quiet desperation and our dreams of other places and our driving around In a midnight-morning panic, oh us highway diner manics In the heaven of our breaking down On a scribbled scrap of paper that was nonsense to us later we wrote it all out Thanks for loving me madly, thanks for getting me through Thanks for being so wild and honest and true For being my destination on those directionless nights Thanks for loving me madly and treating me right