Right and wrong
Is not the things I know about.
A song- but I could calm the waters on a cold, gray day
You will know my name.
I am a cloud; you can’t hurt me!
Strike against me with your strongest hand
Blow you like a boy across the waters
Smash you like a board back to the land.
Filling up the sails of the sailors
You’ll never know where I lie
Cut me, it won’t make you any braver
Falling out of favor with the sky.
Right and wrong
Is not the things I know about.
A song- but I could still the waters on a cold, gray day
You will know my name.
I am a cloud; you can’t hurt me!
Fall upon me with your heavy hand
Run away and yet I seem to follow
Clinging to your whiskers like the sand.
Creeping like a fog above the waters
You’ll never know where I lie
Curling round your shoulders like a vapor
Sucking from your lungs another sigh.
Forty stars against the light of day
Forty stars that draw away, away, away.
Right and wrong Are not the things I care about. A song- but I could cool the waters on a cold, gray day You will call my name.
A song… I guess… about my love for men who are boring on the outside but shady* on the inside- like detectives… or maybe it is a song about my love for the gray clouds and fog that hang over West Virginia in the early spring. All I know for certain is that I wrote this song while thinking about the constellation Scorpio in a bathtub… sometimes when I am feeling down or lost I will choose a constellation to think about to cheer me up… and the moon was in Scorpio at the time, which is why I chose it, maybe. I was in the bathtub because it was the only bathing device in the house, the house being from 1907. However, a shower head has just been installed, so life is more normal now.
*Secretive, I mean. I secretly admire people who have that quality, because I usually end up spilling all the contents of my mind, whether I mean to or not.
You could be my dark man Stranger in the park man Standing in your trench coat flashing Stars above but somethings crashing down
You could be my shady friend
Standing where the street lights end
Shadows fall always behind you
No one seeks and no one finds you now
Clouds stretch so far away
Endless worlds of endless grey
Walk before me and I’l follow you
This road leads us to tomorrow, true?
Clouds takes shape but they always lie
We’ll get bored but we’ll never die
Lay your hand upon my head now
Lead me through the fog and dread now
You could be my shadow man
To offer me your white bread hand
Shelling peanuts with your finger
A dusty feeling I remember now
Life can be so many things
Sometimes swirling like a dream
Sometimes flat I’m trapped inside it
Close my eyes but they won’t hide it
Half alive but that’s okay
The other half is filled with gray
Eyes are reaching through the fog and lace
From another world I can almost place
You could be my answer man
A book to dull to understand
A slice of bread upon my plate
The rusty and forgotten gate to now.
Father, I need to sit.
There’s all of this blood down here- nobody will tell me what it is.
Father, what is the time?
There’s all of this blood down here- nobody will tell me if it’s mine.
You built a tower in my heart just like a paradise
I laid me back to watch so warm in the sand.
Clouds flew above me light flashing out of their eagle eyes
Now I can feel those cold things starting again.
Father, where are my hands?
I need to touch my eyes- something tells me they are hurting me again
Father, am I lying in bed?
Why are the curtains drawn? What is this thing upon my head?
You built a tower in a tower in my heart just like a paradise
I laid me back to watch so safe in the sand.
Sun shimmered on my body like I was a pegasi
But now I can feel those cold things starting again.
Father, why are the curtains drawn?
So many things to do. I can’t remain in here too long.
Father, I need to ask
Of all the things you’ve done, which ones are the ones that you’d take back?
You built a world around my heart just like a paradise
I laid me back to watch so safe in your hand.
Cities they swirled around me like they was a race of lights
But now I can feel those cold things dripping again.
All of the men in the world lined up side by side.
A bundle of twigs they wait for the flame.
Dance by the fire and you will realize.
A burning twig will never feel the pain.
A video which reminds me that I should probably trim my hair, organize my kitchen & play my guitar more carefully, but no- these things will never happen.
I don’t really believe in female instrumentalists, for starters. I always thought I hated male instrumentalists as well, until I recently discovered David Rawlings & Stevie Ray Vaughn & both of them blew me away. Normally, I hate listening to people play guitar. What could be more nauseating than a pointless guitar solo followed by audience applause? But these 2 guys just have something inside of them that comes out through their fingers and it touches me, I don’t know where or why.
I noticed David Rawlings also uses the same pink capo as me. That is where the similarity ends, of course, but do I care? No. I don’t aspire to be something more than I am. I think the crude & rustic will have a seat right next to the skilled & refined at God’s table.
The hill was high, I couldn’t climb
though I knew you were there.
A world of green surrounded me
it stretched out everywhere.
So I got back in my car and drove
to try and find a home.
I thought of you, the whole way through
it made me feel alone.
I thought of you and of the field
with the hill that was so high.
A temple built to something
that lives only in the sky
Everything is always high
and always far away.
I tell myself I must never stop and
I will get there someday.
Many gods and many men
have lived upon a crest.
Though the clouds pass over all of them
it is you I like the best.
All these hills and all these gods
and each man has his own.
Except for me, a tiny breeze
still searching for a home.
A tiny breeze who when she flies
is cut down by the winds.
They slice my heart and splay it
like a butterfly and then
Then I can scale these hills, but even so
my shadow looms so small
that to you it was just the same as though
I was never there at all.
Big men shadow over me
there is no other way
than to watch them with admiring eyes
through a film of gray.
For me there can be no other way for me
than to lie back on the ground
and to let the dreams wash over me
until a home is found.
A home that could be anywhere,
a home so hard to find.
Oh God, but please let it be somewhere real
not somewhere in my mind.
Someplace real, someplace strong
mountainous and grave
nothing flimsy like a butterfly
with her wings upon your leg.
Everyone has gods upon
these hills where claddows fly.
Except for me, I have only you
and only in my mind.
I reached for you, but there was no use
the world was large and green.
It stretched out wide and endlessly
like the sky within a dream.
And who am I, but a dot so small
that no one else could see
as you passed me by invisibly
your shadow touching me?
As you passed me by just like a plant
pressed flat upon the ground
just a thing too small to be cared about
when hills are all around.
Cloud at my door, come in, come in.
Where have you wandered, my friend, my friend?
I have grown weary, I have grown tired;
Every day get up and start a new fire.
But what bothers me most is this feeling I get
That my life is a story that’s already writ;
And that faith has no magic except to forgive-
And if Ben isn’t real, then I don’t wanna live.
See you next Sunday, let me open the door
And you’ll walk down the cobblestone path like before-
Just a fluffy white cloud, one who never asks why,
You just wobble a bit then you climb to the sky.
But what bothers me most is that when you are gone
I stare hard at my hands and tell them to keep on,
Cause you gotta keep grinding and keep with the toil
Because life is just this; it is not something more.
Too tired to struggle, too bitter to give-
And if Ben isn’t real, then I don’t wanna live.
I watch you flying; I watch how you soar.
I know you are a cloud, you are not something more.
And the sky is a flag- something flat, something blue;
And yet you are my friend and I’m a friend to you.
But when I close my eyes all the blue grows so deep
That it drowns me in currents too wavy to sleep;
And I need to decide if the water’s a dream
Or if there’s still a chance life is not what it seems.
Caught between hard things and things elusive-
But if Ben isn’t real, then I don’t wanna to live.
