Retrospective lyrics

I'm gonna clear my head
I'm gonna drink that sun

The saddest sight my eyes can see
Is that big ball of orange sinking slyly down the trees
Sitting in a broken circle while you rest upon my knee
This perfect moment will soon be leaving me

Suzanne calls from Boston the coffee's hot the corn is high
And that same sun that warms your heart will suck that good earth dry

Trouble came around here
Here in the South we fix something to eat
Steam risin' up off the greenery and
We welcome the strangers we meet
Alien sick growing in these walls
Like moss in a crack that time made
I brush a guy in the airport whistling it's a small world after all
And the prices are higher but the kid's still selling lemonade

(Chorus):
Get to the point of it

Jet fuel and traffic lines
Pulling up to the delta signs
Distant shape of my hometown
Black stain where the wheels touch down

I pick up the morning news
I pass the man who's never shined my shoes
Through security and to the train
That will take me to the airplane

Count the miles on the highway
(Count the miles on the highway)
The sum of all my days
(The sum of all my days)

Now the parking lot is empty
Everyone's gone someplace
I pick you up and in the trunk I've packed
A cooler and a two-day suitcase
Cause there's a place we like to drive
Way out in the country
Five miles out of the city limit we're singing
And your hand's upon my knee

So we're okay, we're fine
Baby I'm here to stop your crying
Chase all the ghosts from your head

My friends they wash the windows they shine in the sun
They tell me wake up early in the morning sometimes see what a beautiful job we've done
I said, "let's put on some tunes, sing along, Doolittle all day"
Go down to the riverside take off our shoes and wash these sins away

The river said, "la la la shame on you"
River said, "la la la" it said "shame on you"

through the dust bowl
through the debt
grandma was a suffragette
blacklisted for her publication
blacklisted for my generation
go go go

raise your hands
raise your hands high
don't take a seat
don't stand aside
this time
don't assume anything
just go go go

feed the fire
and fan the flame
i know you kids can stand the rain
i know the kids are still upsetters

I pulled out with the mountain laurel blooming
On a dirt road that is soon to be paved
Down to the site of my original establishment
And the west end family grave

Cause one day moves into two
(One day moves into two)
And I'm losing
Everything except for you
(Everything except for you)
And I would sing you a song of devotion
(I would sing you a song of devotion)

A LOVESTRUCK ROMEO
SINGS THE STREET A SERENADE
HE'S LAYING EVERBODY LOW
HE'S GOT A LOVESONG THAT HE MADE
FINDS A CONVIENANT STREETLIGHT AND HE SAYS SOMETHIN' LIKE
YOU AND ME BABE, HOW ABOUT IT?
JULIET SAYS HEY, ITS ROMEO.
HE NEARLY GAVE ME A HEARTATTACK. YEAH WELL
HE'S UNDER NEATH MY WINDOW
NOW SHE'S SINGIN
HE LA ,MY BOYFRIENDS BACK
SHOULND'T COME AROUND HERE

I sit two stories above the street
It's awful quiet here since love fell asleep
There's life down below me though the kids are walking home from school

So long ago when we were taught
That for whatever kind of puzzle you got
You just stick the right formula in a solution for every fool

I remember the time when I came so close to you
Sent me skipping my class and running from school

I come to you with strange fire, I make an offering of love
The incense of my soul is burned by the fire in my blood
I come with a softer answer to the questions that lie in your path
I want to harbor you from the anger find a refuge from the wrath

This is a message, a message of love
Love that moves from the inside out
Love that never grows tired
I come to you with strange fire

Pain from pearls, hey little girl
How much have you grown?
Pain from pearls, hey little girl
Flowers for the ones you've known

Are you on fire from the years
What would you give for your kid fears?

Secret staircase, running high
You had a hiding place
Secret staircase, running low
They all know now you're inside

Are you on fire from the years

(Dedicated to the memory of a great poet, Frank Stanford)

Three hits to the heart son and it's poetry in motion
One could send you down the river three's a strange way to be delivered
Would you trade your words for freedom that's a barter for a blind man
Three hits to the heart son and it's poetry in motion

Are you leveed like a treasure only words can help me find you

There's a letter on the desktop that I dug out of a drawer
The last truce we ever came to from our adolescent war
And I start to feel the fever of the warm air through the screen
You come regular like seasons shadowing my dreams

The Mississippi's mighty, but it starts in Minnesota
At a place where you can walk across with five steps down

i'm trying to tell you something about my life
maybe give me insight between black and white
and the best thing you've ever done for me
is to help me take my life less seriously
it's only life after all
yeah

well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
and lightness has a call that's hard to hear
i wrap my fear around me like a blanket
i sailed my ship of safety till i sank it

Thought I knew my mind like the back of my hand
The gold and the rainbow and nothing panned out as I planned
They say only milk and honey's gonna make your soul satisfied
I better learn how to swim cause the crossing is chilly and wide

Twisted guardrails on the highway broken glass on the cement
The ghost of someone's tragedy how recklessly my time has been spent

Galileo's head was on the block
The crime was looking up the truth
And as the bombshells of my daily fears explode
I try to trace them to my youth

And then you had to bring up reincarnation
Over a couple of beers the other night
And now I'm serving time for mistakes made by another
In another lifetime

How long till my soul gets it right