Marry me and leave Kentucky And come to Tennessee 'Cause you're the only ten I see

Hello, my friends Hello, my friends Come in, have a seat Come on in my kitchen My friends, take it easy My friends, have a seat My friends, don't you know that I never Want this minute to end? And then it ends

Gold and Green Red and Blue Are the lights on the signs that line Charlotte avenue From the corner window, I watch the falling white flakes God must be carving the clouds into animal shapes Animal shapes, animal shapes God must be carving the clouds into animal shapes

We have no goodwill, no goodwill to give To those who try to take away the things we need to live Friend, this is from your friend, off of Natchez Trace The last dream left worth believing starts with animal shapes

I wrote a letter to a wildflower On a classic nitrogen afternoon Some power that hardly looked like power Said I'm perfect in an empty room Four dogs in the distance Each stands for a kindness, yeah Bluebirds lodged in an evergreen altar

Trapped inside the song Where the nights are so long

I could not love the world entire There grew a desert in my mind I took a hammer to it all Like an insane medieval king

Her doorbell plays a bar of Stephen Foster Her sister never left and look what it cost her We're gonna live in Nashville and I'll make a career Out of writing sad songs and gettin' paid by the tear

You took your love to the marketplace In the wanton corner of a Western state Where every other shopper is a basket case Just realizing the horizon forms a frowning face

Back then, I had a Buckingham rabbit I'd been lonely since she found Christ

Salts the stoop and scoops the cat in Tests an icy patch for traction

And the kids in the corner all covered in dirt Caught trespassing under the moon My father came in from wherever he'd been And kicked my shit all over the room

I wish I lived in the power and light I wish it wasn't Saturday night 'Cause I can't raise hell No, I can't raise hell for two I wish I had a thousand bucks I wish I was the Royal Trux But mostly I wish I wish I was with you

Well, the water looks like jewelry When it's coming out the spout Nothing could make me feel better Than a wet kiss on the mouth Fake I.D.'s and honey bees The jagged skyline of car keys I never knew a bird could fly so low

We'd never been promised there will be a tomorrow So let's just call it the death of an heir of sorrows The death of an heir of sorrows

Yeah, I loved being my mother's son I loved her so because She was so kind and genuine She was, she was, she was

No, I didn't really want to die I only want to die in your eyes

In 27 years I've drunk fifty thousand beers And they just wash against me Like the sea into a pier

And as the pace of life keeps quickening Beneath the bitching and the bickering When I try to drown my thoughts in gin I find my worst ideas know how to swim

There is a house in New Orleans Not the one you've heard about, I'm talking about another house They spoke of gold in the cellar that a Spanish gentleman had left I broke in one hundred years ago with a dagger tucked in my vest

It's raining triple sec in Tchula And the radio plays "Crazy Train" There's a quadroon ball in the beehive Hanging out in the rain And when there's trouble, I don't like running But I'm afraid I got more in common With who I was than who I am becoming

Instead of time, there will be lateness And let forever be delayed

Suffering jukebox Such a sad machine You're all filled up with what other people mean

Inside the golden days of missing you With the people of Cleveland Who've suffered for so many years The shattered glass cussed And when it broke, it spoke to us It said, "Hey" It said, "I know you... what's your name? What's your name?"

They sat there with their hooks in the water And their mustaches caked with airplane glue

Let's go hunting blackbirds Let's throw snowballs from the bridge Fireplace burns backwards Let's not and say we did There's a trapdoor in the country Where we can disappear

Ten thousand afternoons ago All my happiness just overflowed That was life at first and goal to go Me and you and us and them And all those people way back when All our hardships were just yardsticks then, you know You know

She kept it burning longer than I had right to expect The light of my life is going out tonight Without a flicker of regret

The sun and the shutters and the sun shattered hair The butler hesitates at the top of the stairs A kitten from Great Britain sleeps behind the drapes An old silver bowl filled with apples and grapes

Why can't monsters get along with other monsters? Soi disantra Soi disantra They don't want t'ah

Punks in the beerlight, burnouts in love

The smell of fried foods came drifting out one of the castle windows "Let's go around back," I said "My brother buried some stuff back there" We ducked down and walked through the black bushes My shoe made a sucking sound in the turf

Once you taste the geometry of a church in a cul-de-sac You're gonna wanna sit with the bad kids in the back Cruising down Commerce Killing time in the blazing sun Is it true your analyst was a placekicker for the Falcons?

The stars don’t shine upon us We’re in the way of their light

That the truth is not alive or dead The truth is struggling to be said

And as much as we might like to seize the reel and hit rewind Or quicken our pursuit of what we're guaranteed to find When the dying's finally done and the suffering subsides All the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind

Everybody said she needed to move on That he was all but lost, so deep was his coma When he finally came to, the girl he loved was long gone She'd married a banker and gone to Oklahoma

He took my hand, and said, "I'll help you, boy If you really want to disappear"

O Dallas, you shine with an evil light Don't you know that God stays up all night? How'd you turn a billion steers Into buildings made of mirrors? And why am I drawn to you tonight?

Living in a candy jail With peppermint bars Peanut-brittle bunk beds And marshmallow walls Where the guards are gracious And the grounds are grand And the warden really listens And he understands

It's so very cold in the mansion after sunset The snow is blowing through the baseboard outlets And I have no idea what drives you, mister Tanning beds explode with rich women inside

From the Carbon Dioxide Riding Academy To the children's crusade marching through the downtown Well, I think I'd die, see, if you just said hi to me When something breaks, it makes a beautiful sound

Now I'm here for good I won't leave you anymore

But before I go, I've gotta ask you, dear, about that tan line on your ring finger

So the rent became whiskey And then my life became risky

So I remember me And I remember you So many beautiful days in a row now And the nights were perfect, too

I wasn't done being my mother's son Only now am I seeing that being's done

Darkness and cold, darkness and cold

What kind of animal Needs to smoke a cigarette?

Send in the clouds and bring down the rain Shut all the blinds, and turn out the lights I feel insane when you get in my bed I am the trick my mother played on the world Seventeen doctors couldn't decide Whether I should be allowed in the game