Headwinded Lyrics

Headwinded Lyrics.

Icarus (for Anneliese)

Wheels are up and we’re underway
Leaving St. Paul , headed for L.A.
Saddest thing I’ve ever seen
A woman’s tears behind a back porch screen.
Softest thing I’ve ever seen
Your shadow moving over me
Silver spark up in the blue
30,000 feet and I burn for you

chorus
Candle wax is long gone cool
On that dresser in your room
Half my life I’ve been on the road
The other half I’ve been coming home.

Postcard from the stratosphere
Headwinded, wish you were here
Ten miles a minute I feel our hearts
Slipstreaming apart
All this air between you and me
I still find it hard to breathe

chorus

bridge
Mi corazón tiene alas
Que vivo en azul

Icarus was a friend of mine
Suffering for his pride
I keep his feather in my shirt
It whispers, dirt to dirt
I’ll come in low, I’ll duck the sun
Fly straight to you, my flightless one

chorus

Silver spark up in the blue
30,000 feet and I burn for you.

Could Be You

Waterboys and Medicine Bow
Daddy told me not to go
Carbon County 402
Reservation blues

Posers, pimps and prostitutes
20/20 in a Nudie suit
White boy loves his olive girl
Whirly, whirly girl.

chorus
Could be me, could be you
Could be me, could be you
Could be me, could be you
Could be you

Devil’s teeth in turpentine
Revelations over time
Run all night and made the line
I’m way behind

June bug dying in the screen
Evidence of things unseen
Put your money in the jar
If you get that far

bridge
Searching for a higher plane
Settle in and spread the blame
Cut the check and sign your name
It’s all the same

Silly girl with a crystal ball
Keeps one foot propped against the wall
Gives as good as she gets
It ain’t over yet

Rockets in Chugwater Flats
Dry bones where the dreamer sat
Prophet in a cowboy hat
I ain’t buyin’ that.

chorus

Sally & Jack

Sally’s got a trailer at the edge of town
Runny-nosed kid sleeping on the couch
Living on beans and American cheese
Could be worse, could be the end of the dream

Junior year, Fourth of July
Thousand pounds of Black Cat across the sky
Everybody oohed and everybody aahed
Sally and Jack were watching from behind the garage

The last boom boomed and the sky went dark
Jack drove off to find a place to park
No road map, no wedding ring
Frantic love, hell, it was a beautiful thing

chorus
Time long gone and love long spent
Souls washed out and hearts caved in
Happy ever after left this town
Running down a road without a turnaround

Making tin cans on the graveyard shift
Christmas wrapped in a credit slip
Sometimes she stands at the trailer door
Takes a deep breath says Lord, I can’t do it no more

‘Cause Jack did the right thing the first two years
Last thing she heard he lived south of here
Sometimes at night she hates that man
Thinks about the boy, figures she’d do it again.

chorus

bridge
Sometimes at night she thinks about
All them dreams that never worked out
Like bridges burned
Long before the river was crossed
The smoke still hangs
In the corners of her heart
A woman and a child
And a man
Long gone.

Twelve more payments on a broke-down Ford
Trunk won’t close, you can’t open the door
Some folks would dream of a long limousine
Sally would settle for a little change in scene.

Dirty little secret about a mobile home
They haul it in on the open road
Detach the hitch and roll the wheels away
Home sweet home, guess who’s here to stay.

chorus

Newfangled Cowboy Way

Burn a little sage in the ashtray
Watch the smoke rise and curl
A sweet little benediction
For all the lessons we never learn

Went backsliding last night, and it was good
But then the shadows came home to roost
You hurt me long before you knew me
And I did the same thing to you

chorus
So I’ll pull on my boots in the morning
Take a bead on the old centerline
Can’t undo the things I’ve done
But I can buy me a little more time
Yes, I live to ride one more day
It’s the newfangled cowboy way

Well I never wrote a love letter
That I didn’t mean
And I never wrote a love letter
That I could bear to go back and read

chorus

This buddy of mine, he’s got it figured
Says he flies high above it all
But at night I can hear his bottles
Rattlin’, down the hall

chorus

How Many Miles

Black Freightliner, mother road
Black Freightliner, mother road
Somewhere west of Laramie he rolls
Black Freightliner, mother road

80,000 stacked up on 18
80,000 stacked up on 18
Pictures in his wallet, little dreams
Pictures in his wallet, little dreams

chorus
How many miles, how many roads
How many miles, how many roads
Motion is your morphine, let it roll
Motion is your morphine, let it roll

Rumble strip howlin’ in the rain
Rumble strip howlin’ in the rain
Gator in the eastbound hammer lane
Rumble strip howlin’ in the rain

So you tarp that flatbed down one more time
You tarp that flatbed down just one more time
Broken hearts and dispatch on the line
Tarp that flatbed down one more time

chorus

I hope you make it home one last time
I hope you make it home one last time
Grab another gear, man, let’er ride
I pray you make it home safe one more time

chorus

Shaman Girl

Shaman girl on the sidewalk
With your baby at your side
Could you love a man in blue jeans
Tattered shirt and cluttered mind
Bottom line
Given time
We’ll be fine

I am staring at the canyon
I am bringing you to mind
I am looking for an answer
I see rocks and sky and time
And I find
As the raven flies
So do I

chorus
Hey Baby, I am straight ¾ time
Hey Baby, I can be deaf, dumb and blind
But I fly, high
I fly, high
I fly, high … a true line
I walk the line

Boatman can you read the river?
I hear rapids ‘round the bend
Steady hand on the tiller
A little luck and a little dread
Vows are said
Now I lay my head
On the wedding bed

And should I grow to be an old man
Chasing echoes of your heart
I’ll close my eyes and see us walking
In New Orleans after dark
You and me
Cheek to cheek
New Orleans

Somewhere Out In Mudbrook

Somewhere out in Mud Brook
Out there in the sticks
Lives the last authentic completely unusual man

He’s sick of the dad’gum guv’ment
He’s sick of his neighbors too
He’s sick of me, and he’s damn sure sick of you

He’s got a ratty little dog and a shotgun by the bed
He’s got a bucketload of trouble in his head

Someone from the county
Come by to count his teeth
He said you’ll find’em over there behind the couch

Two ladies from the church
Brought him chicken and a Bible verse
He said “Thank you – now pray for someone worse.”

He’s got a lumpy little dog and a shotgun by the bed
He’s got a bucketload of chaos in his head

He’s fed up with the rednecks
Their bellies and their chew
He’s tired of clipboard hippies telling him what to do

And them mail-order hikers
With kayaks on their cars
Mostly Subarus, tuned to NPR

He’s got a skinny little dog and a shotgun by the bed
He’s got a bucketload of decline in his head

recitation (you betcha!)
I went to see him the other day, he was sittin’ ther on his porch, and he said,
“Well I don’t know much…” (and that’s a lie), but he said, “I been studyin’ on it,
and I do know this:

If it beeps, it won’t last
Flash runs outta gas
We all should spend a night on someone’s grave
And if you can’t learn from that
Man, if that don’t snap yer cap
Drink the Kool-Aid, go on, enjoy the ride.

He’s got a happy little dog and a shotgun by the bed
He’s got a teaspoon of hopeful in his head.

Somewhere out in Mud Brook
Out there in the sticks
Lives the last authentic completely unusual man.

Losing Satellites

When the last star is gone
It’s darkest before the dawn
And I’m calling
Baby hold on.

I dreamed of a satellite
One that was set right
To relay
All your little heartbeats.

From out in the Pleiades
Down to my bended knee
Little one
I’m so all alone

chorus
And in the first light of day
As the fog burns away
You fade

You hung a dress on the line
Just before the last time
When the wind blows
I see you slow dance

Why is it the worst of me
Seems to get the best of me
Everytime
I put out my hand

chorus

Little bits of history
Little bits of you and me
Burning
Fire in the sky
And in the last light of day
You fade

Still Alive

Middle of the road and middle-aged
Can you still tap the rage
Standing in the shadows there
Can you show me that you care
I’m all you need and a little less
I’m my own particular mess
It’s been a rude and reckless ride
What the hell, I’m still alive.

Can you get angry anymore
Or did you perish in the war
Deadly thing about the past
Sticks up your heart for petty cash
I am a desperate little boy
Someone took my favorite toy
It’s been a silly, selfish ride
What the hell, I’m still alive

chorus
I’m still alive
I’m getting by
I’m still alive
I’m getting by, doing fine just getting by

Have you defined your ecstasy
And what’s it got to do with me
My demons all have tiny feet
I hear them tripping up the street
I’ve done my time on the heartbreak side
What the hell, I’m still alive.

chorus

bridge
And then there comes that sundown day
Silent bullet with your name
Stand there tall let it take you down
Leave this world spinning around

It’s been a rude and a reckless ride
What the hell, we’re still alive
It’s been a silly, selfish ride
What the hell, we’re still alive
We’ve done some time on the heartbreak side
What the hell, we’re still alive

You could say she broke my stride
no worries ma
I’m still alive

I Never Knew (Kitchen table version)

(for my little brother)

January days, I can see a trace
Of your breath, out there in space
Sundogs are gold in the blue
One to each side of the sun
A picture of me and you

I never knew, I never knew

Corn rattles cold in the row
The wind is pushing snow
The sky is wicked with crows
They wheel and they plunge from above
Ragged black holes in the gray
Calling like dogs on the bay

I never knew, I never knew
Where are you now?
Where are you now?
I stand in the void and I call
Where are you now?

instrumental bridge

It’s green here in June
But it’s cold as an empty room
My heart is hung on the moon

Where are you now?
Where are you now?
I never knew, I never knew
I stand in the void and I call
Where are you now?