"Deconstruction"

We talked up all night and came to no conclusion
We started a fight that ended in silent confusion
And as we sat stuck you could hear the trash truck
Making its way through the neighborhood
Picking up the thrown out different from house to house
We get to decide what we think is no good
We're sculpted from youth, the chipping away makes me weary
And as for the truth it seems like we just pick a theory
The one that justifies our daily lives
And backs us with quiver and arrows
To protect openings cause when the warring begins
How quickly the wide open narrows
Into the smallness of our deconstruction of love
We thought it was changing, but it never was
It's just the same as it ever was
A family of foxes came to my yard and dug in
I looked in a book to see what this could possibly mean
Cause there is fate in the breeze and signs in the trees
Possible tragic events
When forces collide with the damage strewn wide
And holes blasted straight through the fence
The sky starts to crash the rain on the roof starts to drumming
And laid out like cash your take on my list of shortcomings
The show starts to close, I know how this goes
The plot a predictable showing
And though it seems grand it's just one speck of sand
And back to the hourglass we're going
Back to the smallness of our deconstruction of love
We thought it was changing, but it never was
Our deconstruction of love

"Become You"

I heard you sing a rebel song,
sung it loud and all alone.
We can't afford the things you save,
we can't afford the warranty.
I see you walking in the glare
down the county road we share.
Our southern blood, my heresy,
damn that ol' confederacy.

It took a long time to
become the thing I am to you.
And you won't tear it apart
without a fight, without a heart.

I'm sorry for what you have learned,
when you feel the tables turn.
To run so hard in your race,
now you find who set the pace.
The landed aristocracy
exploiting all your enmity.
All your daddies fought in vain,

"You've Got To Show"

Yes it's true I've gotten very moody over you
Don't think I don't sense your caution way across the room
Or across the phone lines, big black ocean, or conversation brief
We can't find a clear connection, and I can't get relief

Why don't we both agree we're both afraid and too afraid to say
If I say count to three and move toward me, would you meet me half the way
There are a thousand things about me I want only you to know
But I can't do it alone, you've got to show

While you occupy me I command my dreams each day
To bring you in me even thinly as the morning chases you away
I half believe if I just picture us we will come true

Wishful thinking or my dreams sinking half depends on you

Show me you are fully alive
If you want to fly you take this dive
If you want to kiss, kiss for real
I'll give you back everything you feel

Drive in space that peaceful place
You'd be my secret sharer
Front and back and all around the thin margin of error
Move too fast or move too or somewhere in between
Navigate the perfect distance so your getaway is clean
Why don't we both agree we're both afraid and too afraid to say
If I say count to three and move toward me would you meet me half way
There are a thousand things about me I want only you to know
But I can't go there alone, you've got to show

"Yield"

I was downstairs in the greenroom
waiting for you to appear.
I said hello to your family,
I said hello to your friends,
I said hello to this situation
that never yields.

Now its easy for me to tell you
that my love for you is real.
I once stumbled on these feelings,
I once stumbled on these words,
something you'll never stumble on dear.

Oh you were so baroque,
all of those words,
just to tell me no.
And you were so softspoken
with all of the others
who said you weren't broken,
they just let you go.

When you're three days down the highway
and you're looking like I feel;
if it takes a lot to keep it going,
if it takes a lot to keep it real,
take sometime for yourself and
and learn to yield..

"Collecting You"

I could paint you in the dark
Cause I've studied you with hunger like a work of art
These are very secret days
I collect my information then I stowe it all away
Call me when you breeze through to your appointments
The work you do
Call me, I'm collecting you
The pleading prayer and hairshirt sting
My hair-trigger love and faulty spring
Motivation smokes a name, but I don't like that smell applied to me so
Blindly just the same call me
When you breeze through to your appointments the work you do
Call me I'm collecting you
Turning up my collar to an unseasonal chill you ask a favor, you know I will
The rain comes a surprise we fly across the railroad ties
I feel the danger the foolish thrill oh yes I will
What it will or won't be then
The shutter pre development the ink full in the pen
Mind the mind's eye's trickery
You might picture killer beautiful much more than it might be
Call me tell me what you're up to what you'll do
Call me I'm collecting you
I would be foolish to think that I could turn it off and stay alive
The way I live when you switch on hand on the dimmer, give me just a glimmer
Give me just a shadow hope around the edges, agony and rapture forever uncaptured
Take these secrets to your grave
Drug across your landscape and buried in your cave
You're piling up and out of sight
But trying to add it up just feels like counting shades of light
Call me when you breeze through to your appointments what you must do
Call me I'm collecting you
Hang it in my window let it complicate my view
The separation the glass of you
But I can paint this picture any way that I see fit
The art of pain the subject sits unmoved

"Hope Alone"

Let's not drag this out, everything's in motion
Though I've only ever loved you kind and with devotion
I remember when I met you and even from the start
I thought one day you'd probably just come home and break my heart
It's funny what you know and still go on pretending
With no good evidence you'll ever see that happy ending
You were looking for your distance and sensing my resistance you had to do your will
I had to learn the hard way
We were just an empty dream too big for hope alone to fill
I know I'm a dreamer, so I'll give you that
Still I hope I'm more than just a place you laid your hat
You're a land of secrets, its only citizen
And though I paid my dues I was never allowed in
And so I am a stranger but especially today
As I get sad and lonely and you get your way
You were looking for your distance and sensing my resistance you had to do your will
I had to learn the hard way
We were just an empty dream too big for hope alone to fill
Holding out for change I know we never stood a chance
So I could only wait and watch you slip right through my hands

"Bitterroot"

Tonight I'll be sleeping on the mountain top,
I got a billion stars for my witness.
In the morning I'll go down and the sun comes up,
I'll take a drink from the Bitter Root River.

Have you been lonely?
Yes I've been lonely.
I've been lonely too.

Tonight I'll be sleeping on the mountain top,
I got a billion stars for my witness.
In the morning I'll go down and the sun comes up,
I'll take a drink from the Bitter Root River.

Have you been travelin?
Yes I've been travelin.
I've been travelin too.

Tonight I'll be sleeping on the mountain top,
I got a billion stars for my witness.
In the morning I'll go down and the sun comes up,
I'll take a drink from the Bitter Root River.

"Our Deliverance"

Now we can say that nothing's lost and only change brings round the prophecy
Where now it's melting, the solid frost was once a veil on greener landscapes we would see
Beneath my surface the water's heating
And steam comes up and out the tears you see me shine
For every strange and bitter moment there was never a better time
For every pleasure exacts its pain
How you hurt me how you were good to me
Beneath my window a mournful train that makes me smile at my bad poetry
Beneath my surface a song is rising
It may be simple while it hides its true intent
We may be looking for our deliverance but it has already been sent
It's in the night fall when the light falls
And what you've seen isn't there anymore
It's in our blind trust that love will find us
Just like it has before
They're sending soldiers to distant places
X's and O's on someone's drawing board
Like green and plastic but with human faces
And they want to tell you it's a merciful sword
But with all the blood newly dried in the desert
Can we not fertilize the land with something else
There is no nation by god exempted
Lay down your weapons and love your neighbor as yourself
In the night fall when the light falls
And what you've seen isn't there anymore
It's through our blind trust that love will find us
Just like it has before

"Starkville"

If you were here in Starkville, the townie boys would love the way you stare.
If you were here in Starkville, the local girls , they wouldn't have a prayer.
I spent a reckless night inside the wonder of your everlasting charm,
now I'm haunted by geography, and the flora and the fauna of your heart.

At the dawning of some road worn day,
I called you on a whim just to say-
"The morning birds are singing",
but I could not do them justice, so I hung up and fell back to sleep.

I'm in love with my mobility, but sometimes this life can be a drag;
like when I noticed your nobility and how my leaving only held you back.
I remember one occasion- you were drinking,-when you asked me to the coast,
but I was hell bent on agony back then, so I missed the boat.

At the dawning of a road worn day,
I called you a whim just to say,
"My regrets become distractions when I can not do them justice",
then I hung up and fell back to sleep.

When I was down in Starkville, I was hiding out inside some Comfort Inn
from a local gang of troubadors, when the homecoming queen -she come riding in.
I slipped out of my room into the rain and I went running for my health.
The headlights turned to moonlight, and finally I was running by myself.

At the dawning of this road worn day,
I call you a whim just to say,
"The morning birds are singing".