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1. |
Georgette
03:47
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One light bulb is enough to burn this lamp, Georgette
One light bulb is enough to burn this lamp, Georgette
Start burning two or three you’ll drown yourself in debt
You like to say we’re dying but we ain’t dead yet
Tomorrow afternoon we’ll go into town
Tomorrow afternoon we’ll go into town
Your mama stole the fabric for your wedding gown
But there is no silk strong enough to tie your heart down
It’s five miles to Dakota, five hundred to Montana
It’s five miles to Dakota, five hundred to Montana
A girl could run her whole life just trying to get gone
You were lost to this world on the day that you were born
One light bulb is enough to burn this lamp, Georgette
One light bulb is enough to burn this lamp, Georgette
Start burning two or three you’ll drown yourself in debt
You like to say we’re dying but we ain’t dead yet
One light bulb is enough to burn this lamp, Georgette
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2. |
Seen Enough Leavers
03:18
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There is steel in his eye
That says I oughta pack
But I’ve seen enough leavers to know
He won’t be back
Some things are just true
Like I stayed too long with you
Too long awhile
There’s a blue wind
blowing round my Cadillac
Let it blow all it wants
Watch it overact
Some things are just true
Like I stayed too long with you
Too long awhile
CHORUS:
Time’s the fastest thing I know
It’s run away with everything I’ve had to show
With all the months and years spent dodging your blows
Time’s the fastest thing I know
Every day I try to capture
What I’d never sought but
Before it hits the ground
It burns up hot
Some things are just true
Like I stayed too long with you
Too long awhile
Now a shock of bony flowers
clogs a dull clay pot
The urge may be gone
But the edge is not
Some things are just true
Like I stayed too long with you
Too long awhile
CHORUS
Crush me, love, crush me
Blow me away
I would die more often if
I could end this way
Let time rob me blind
Let it spring the latch
It can take what’s not nailed down
I’m not too attached
Some things are just true
Like I stayed too long with you
Too long awhile
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3. |
This Summer's Sleeper
02:42
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Those offshore boys made it look simple
Just some underwater noise
The details were dim but
We’ve always made it up as we go
With your big ideas and my little calculator
We were unmatched north of the Equator
Design it, build it, watch the wind blow
CHORUS:
This summer’s sleeper features
Old bones in a bowl in a shroud
You may have been nobody’s keeper
But you have brother now
Watching a flood of blueprints on borrowed
Shopfront TVs we wait for tomorrow
One bad number
One floating tennis shoe
I’ll be the first one to say that I did it
If I can just live long enough to admit
Hungry, yes, but not a damn fool
CHORUS
Coach said, “Flossie, hear the birds all humming
Bet your bottom dollar there’s a big rain coming”
Wild as he is, no one paid him any mind
Today at the Parish, not rock nor a needle
Can hush the long low prayers of the feeble
Who’ve never been a draw for the saving kind
CHORUS
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4. |
Burley
04:28
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His thumb caught on the lump the first day of topping
But our cash lived in the Powell 6215
My hips a pair of doorstops but our need so wide
I just fixed some hot milk bread up for the risin’
By the time I went to see the man down at the County
It was the size of a pack of Marlboro Reds
He wrestled out my blood like a loan from a bank
Or the bottom of the ocean off an anchor
CHORUS:
They tell you that you’re bleeding but they can’t say where from
They promise you you’re drowning in sharp air
Plenty of people want to call this suicide
Bu you can’t kill something that ain’t there
No, you can’t kill something that ain’t there
They sent me home in time to put the burley in
What a shame we didn’t catch it early
A shame your Governor drew that fatal line
They woulda covered you if you was from Kentucky
The tick of wrens as morning slams into the barns
The weary dirt that furrows like his brow
The makeshift nest the ditch weed builds for Sundrop cans
The crown of thorns on purple thistle down
CHORUS
There’s wrinkles where the water trickles down the limestone face
Of the banks of Hartspaw Creek in Hartspaw Hollow.
I’ve half a mind once I have died to set up in that place
And beg for all the tears that I could never borrow.
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5. |
Potholes
04:31
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Potholes weak hearts
just done shoveling us out when another one starts
This time of year rips my pieces apart
Potholes weak hearts
Weak hearts locked bars
The first fucking Noël fills my shopping cart
Somebody’s gonna leave, someone will drop you hard
Weak hearts locked bars
CHORUS:
Mostly in transit, as I recall. Split tight to make a share
Walk on coals to find my way here from there
here from there
Year turns I can’t learn
The simple equation to force your return
The half dozen reasons why I made you squirm
Year turns I can’t learn
I can’t learn basic terms
The air here is thin, only meek things burn
Nothing upon nothing and still I yearn
but I can’t learn basic terms
CHORUS
I skipped that part
Must have missed the start
Was out sick on the day they raffled off the answers to the families in the park
Answering’s a hard hard art
Answering’s the hardest part
I answer to the hardest heart
Potholes weak hearts
Just done shoveling us out when another one starts
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6. |
Cora
04:11
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Cora I don’t want to leave you behind
Made one bad move now my mind’s
Eye sees your ten fingertips
Your pursed, simmering lips
Cora I’m at the mercy of the night
Falling prey to the day
Claw through soil, mulching blood
Mulching prayers
Above your head
CHORUS:
It’s sick to make a woman look away
Sick to keep a mother at bay
Sticks not the stones broke up our home
I ride the ferry alone
Abandon all hope but keep some
Pride so I might bridge that divide
I wore the pants once, tried them on for size
There were bats in my belfry
And the drums on the risers
Kept the meter for me
Set my Cora free
CHORUS
Through the snow last night a crocus grew
Cold, cold
Can I coax a clue from underneath of you
Underneath of you
Underneath
Cora I don’t want to leave you behind
Made one bad move now my mind’s
Eye sees your ten fingertips
Your pursed, simmering lips
It’s sick to make a woman look away
Sick to keep a mother at bay
Sick to make a woman look away
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7. |
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Lightning turned the leaves on the trees around
Every night that summer down in Morristown
Thunder shot curses across the sky
By morning not a single blade of grass was dry
We set up shop behind the A & P
The wind, the rain, and Rex and me
In Morristown
Daddy left mama for a case of beer
And in case he changed his mind, she moved us here
Rex had a sister, a fluent pen, and the
Shell of a man where his dad had been
We told stories about what oughta be
And tried on lives we’d never see
In Morristown
CHORUS:
Don’t know how much of this story
You’ve already heard
Man trades a diamond ring
For a mockingbird
We called our baby Lila and we set to work
To spare that child a world of hurt
In between jobs we took the time
To love on her and teach her nursery rhymes
One for all and all for one
We mighta been hungry but we sure had fun
In Morristown
Lila could sing before she could talk
Her voice made the hardest man’s edges soft
Tried to let her songs lure me back to the world
But I had a bad case of being my daddy’s girl
I guess there’s no cure for a heart that’s broken
Before it even starts beating by words unspoken
In Morristown
CHORUS
Rex lost it all at the greyhound track
I couldn’t have held a job if it was strapped to my back
The night before Lila reached the age of nine
I threw myself a farewell party of meth and wine
The walls were dirty and the lights were dim
Rex identified my body as next of kin
In Morristown
CHORUS
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8. |
Second to Last Stand
02:44
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There’s a map in my head
Prickling with pins
Of all the places I’ve done
And all the dreams that did me in
If hope’s the thing with wings
God help that bastard
I got my sights set on him
CHORUS:
This might be my
Second-to-last stand
I intend to go out fighting,
But on the other hand
I could wake intact and gleaming
And in high demand
In which case, this might be my
Second-to-last stand.
The trouble with dreaming
Is it comes to an end
It breaks like a fever
And leaves you stranded
In dirty sheets just shy of a plan
To get you to the promised land
CHORUS
repeat
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9. |
Next Time Around
04:59
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Squares of clean paint unmasked by your exit
Floors unburdened by rugs
I should be scrambling to cover these up but I'm not
1819 East Bradbury Hwy.
You swore we’d die in this place
I bet the people we bought if from once said exactly the same
CHORUS:
Even the leaves are leaving
I don’t know if they get pushed or they leap
I’ll be pointing this whole load due south
By the end of next week
The outlines of tools that couldn’t fix broken
Graffiti the garage
There are ways to measure our failures after all
You left half the records and a couple of boxes
Of things that I don’t recognize
Do we all live this way? Do we all just keep telling these lies?
CHORUS
Maybe we all get more chances the next time around
The davenport’s all chewed to hell by the puppy
Your friends help me drag it outside
Maybe one couple’s wreck is another’s romantic ride
Heard you’re calling this amicable to your mother
Somethings just weren’t meant to be
But I don’t recall anyone serving that sentence but me
CHORUS
Maybe we all get more chances the next time around
Maybe we all get more chances the next time around
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10. |
Story of My Life
03:10
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Let me introduce you as the girl who learned to glean
They say you’d never hunger but you need more than it seems
I’ve been offered nothing. I find nothing will suffice
And that’s the story of my life
There’ve been days when I have thought my life would never end
Though pain pours down on this hard town, only mercy cracks its skin
You shouldn’t have saved me. You had no right
That’s the story of my life
To the moon, love
Rock paper scissors and sky
To the stars, love
Oh you flew, oh you’re flying, oh you fly
Let me introduce you as the tailor of my dreams
Which are so thin when they begin, but soon strain at the seams
When all the world’s looseness is bound up tight
That’s the story of my life
One sweet minute of one night
All lost was found, remember
I’ve been out looking for the light
To brighten these dark rooms forever
Dark rooms
Bright lights
That’s the story of my life
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Meghan Hayes Nashville, Tennessee
Meghan Hayes is a singer-songwriter, Nurse Practitioner and landscape designer living in Nashville, TN. Her most recent record, Seen Enough Leavers, is a bruising post-divorce document of pain, anxiety and loss, that has been lauded as “one of the best Americana albums in recent history.” Hayes is currently interviewing producers for her next record. ... more
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