Joe Henry Album

[No lyrics]

Nobody knows the man that I keep hid
Nobody knows the man that I keep hid
He's raised my face like a pirate's flag
A phantom nation's tattered rag
Nobody knows the man that I keep hid

Somebody used my mouth laughed out loud
Somebody used my mouth and laughed out loud
Spoke in ways that were strange to you
Whispered things even money won't do
Nobody knows the man that I keep hid

Something startled you late last night
Something startled you late last night
A ghost from my dreams leaning pale
Moved in you left a vapor trail
Nobody knows the man that I keep hid

You say you've changed but fear you wont
I say I've changed and prove I don't

Somebody made my heart a silver spoon
Somebody made my heart a silver spoon
It eats away at love and pride
Like hunger down the mountainside
Nobody knows the man that I keep hid

Nobody knows the man that I keep hid

How can I change the lights
The color of this room
Why can't this channel find
A kinder afternoon

I feel the fray of every letter
To cross your lips that know no better
Disarray, disarray

I want my story straight
But all the others bend
From wonderous to strange
To beauty at the end

I move along a swaying wire
Your talking drums a perfect choir
To my disarray, disarray, disarray

Each fuzzy word I said
Returns a finer blade
To touch the thought balloon
Of every plan I've laid

I know the switch but keep the station
I love you with all due desperation
And disarray, disarray, disarray

Oh this is my favorite cage
It grows up around me like silver strands
Of briar and roses, wisdom and rage
To cradle my heart like a bird in your hand
Of briar and roses, wisdom and rage
This is my favorite cage
It grows up around me like silver strands
And cradles my heart like a bird in your hand

This is a beautiful war to be sure
A surrendering hero's name will be sung
Or scratched in the sand like some secret cure
When all else has failed and the battle feared won
Scratched in the sand like some secret cure
This is a beautiful war to be sure
A surrendering hero's name will be sung
When all else has failed and the battle feared won

This is a star more perfect than peace
A flash in the dark setting fire to trees
Wresting my faith down out of the eaves
Bending my will back up on its knees

This is loveliest tumble from grace
Into the arms of what is unbound
From gravity's rule by a glimpse of your face
It sets to falling what will never touch ground
From gravity's rule by a glimpse of your face
This is loveliest tumble from grace
Into the arms of what is unbound
You set me to falling and I never touch ground

There's a song we used to know
A kind of weary blues
Some broken tune from long ago
Some of us still like to use

It hangs up high in the rafters
Like smoke it has no form
Keep it all hid like laughter
And sing out death, death to the storm

Death to the storm
Death to the storm
Death to the storm
Death to the storm

We keep it all hid like laughter
And sing out death, death to the storm

I've caught my rage in the making
Alive here in my hand
But it bent the rod to breaking
And still I'm a hungry, hungry man

The trouble is so underrated
I've been battered, rusted, whored
Calling all the great ill fated
Who bring death, death to the storm

Death to the storm
Death to the storm
Death to the storm
Death to the storm

We call upon the great ill fated
Who bring death, death to the storm

A line of cars is rolling westbound
A dark river just begun
The tramps are huddled in their best now
Like a funeral in the sun

A man waits on orange crates
His meager eyes go soft and warm
As women wade the deep parade
Cheering death, death to the storm

Death to the storm
Death to the storm
Death to the storm
Death to the storm
As women wade the deep parade
Cheering death, death to the storm

From the mountain comes a soul
And the stones grow up like trees
From the mountain comes a soul
And the stones grow up like trees

All blues hail Mary with her roses
But you're their masterpiece

Cut away each blade of grass
Our feet cannot tramp down
The limb of every hanging tree
That time's left hanging round

All blues sing that love is light not glory
A story, not a crown

I won't be death's sad trophy now
While I still lie awake
I won't be death's sad trophy now
While I still lie awake
All the blues sing of love and death and you
As chances yet to take

How dark this bit of light so late
That falls upon your breast
How dark this bit of light so late
That falls upon your breast

All blues and grace by God, and I
Will have to learn the rest

I'm going to climb that hill and look out across
Climb that hill and look out across
Climb that hill and look out across
A long ways off from here

I'm going to dig my well from the bottom to the top
Dig my well from the bottom to the top
Dig my well from the bottom to the top
A long ways off from here

I'm gonna change my name til it rings a bell
Change my name til it rings a bell
Change my name til it rings a bell
A long ways off from here

I'm gonna leave my shame where I make my bed
Leave my shame where I make my bed
Leave my shame where I make my bed
Keep it like a pillow underneath my head.

I'm gonna carry your letter close by my side
Carry carry your letter close by my side
Carry your letter close by my side
A long ways off from here

And when the story gets better I'm gonna climb inside
When the story gets better I'm gonna climb inside
When the Story gets better I'm gonna climb inside
A long ways off from here

This is the progress of love that I fear
You retreat just as my defeat finally nears
What's only to lose, myself I volunteer
So all of your spoils could be mine

Life takes root in the deepest dark ground
Where bones blood and honor have been trampled down
And beaten like ponies and driven to town
Where reason is traded for rhyme

Your sailor is my lawyer
Your seamstress suits my king
But you are the mouth of the river
The star of my every dream

Some young punk cut a wire, the sun fell in the yard
We gathered round it, and we kicked it hard
We passed around flowers and wine and we cried oh Lord
Now here comes the night

Our every word now we talk in blues
A hymn to the life we're all bound to lose
We'd die for more but we still refuse
To live without a fight

Your sailor is my lawyer
Your seamstress suits my king
But you are the mouth of the river
At the start of my every dream

We say "never forget" and mean "never forgive"
No, never as long as ever we live
It offends all our dead to surrender this
To even think we might go on

And freedom doesn't need to be free when it sells
Like ocean waves offered from inside of shells
We bet the farm trying to ring its bells
While love still goes for a song

Your sailor is my lawyer
Your seamstress suits my king
But you are the mouth of the river
At the start of my every dream

[No lyrics]

There's a suit on my frame like a shadow of birds
Stitched all together by a murmur of words
That hang like a moon in the thread of the air
And speak with the sound of my every prayer

There's a light at the end of the evenings that bring
A fire that only such hour can sing
It slips off the tongue in the trees going bare
That lean in to hear your every prayer

The past is a dark foreign country that calls
That you whisper regret into the cracks of its walls
That rise at the border of love and despair
And fall when they've heard our every prayer

An old woman stands up in a boat with a fan
Signals the shore with a wave of her hand
To a town disappeared and a boy unaware
That he wades into reeds with her every prayer

Now there's a cut on my cheek that I can't leave alone
I reach it to find just how close to the bone
Does my skin and my blood allow me to dare
To live in the word of my every prayer

My every prayer

I clawed at your skirt like it was a dirt floor
And I could dig my way free of myself taking more
But prisoners know nothing of victory at war
Let's a call it a truce for now

Georgia looks covered in blood from the air
Where the clay and river fight and run as a pair
And women comb bramble and stones from their hair
Let's call it a truce for now

True revelation is a thug and it comes
With narrow grey eyes not the rolling of drums
It may take your hand but it's seeking your thumbs
And we'll call it a truce for now

Let's a call it a truce for now.

I could have sworn this was the way when we started down
I thought we'd left a light on dear but I can't see it now
I can't even find the chance when it's right here in my way
La la la la la la

But I remember tomorrow like it was yesterday
I remember tomorrow like it was yesterday
You called out something in your sleep it was not my name
You startled when I pulled you close but I held you just the same
Neither of us spoke again in the dark where we lay
La la la la la la

Pretending tomorrow would come like it was yesterday

The birds have picked the blossoms I think out of spite
The dogs have taken to the street like it was theirs by right
The clouds have drawn a curtain where the stars have gone astray
La la la la la la

They're taking out tomorrow like it was yesterday
Taking out tomorrow like it was yesterday
Taking out tomorrow like it was yesterday
Taking out tomorrow like it was yesterday

La la la la la la

Light no lamp when the sun comes down
The dark will speak, has things to say
Something lost and never found
Hides from the cold watchful eyes of day

Close no door against the cold
The angry storm is alive in you
It's like a story never told
And it tears at walls that it can't pass through

Save no time for later on
It can't be caught like falling rain
But leaves the tongue, is sung and gone
Til only the song of regret remains

So light no lamp when the sun comes low
Pull the dark close to your face
Shadows fear covers you like clothes
But likewise so does love and grace