Lyrics

The Road

{This is a break-up song I updated and revisited from my last record. I love this new version!}

You’re driving the highway you made on your face
Little red lines laid out through the state
And you’re driving to leave him
And you’re driving to forget him

And if I could say one thing

And if I could teach the whole world to sing

Where did it go?

Did you suppose you’d go
When I spent every living day on the road?
You’ve crumpled the map you’ve made on your face

‘Cause, girl, you’re chasing something that won’t wait

And you’re driving to leave him
And you’re driving to forget him

Fire in your Belly

{I wrote this song minutes after I finished reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. There are, of course, pieces of my own story weaved into this song, but the images are inspired from McCarthy’s story and retold within mine.}

I awoke to find you covered in ash

You looked like snow on the road
Remember that night out the window
We were six years old between the bedposts

Now there’s a light in your belly

Now there’s a fire in your belly

You went down that road two weeks ago

Where did you go?
You went down in the swamp
Kudzu growing on your back
You came back wet with sweat

Ordinary Day

{This is a love song written for Will. It’s the only one I’ve ever managed to write. I think this is my favorite track on the record.}

Can I tell you a story that made me who I am?

Can I write them down, can I put them in a song?
Can I paint them on your face?

Cause, baby, this is the taste of spring.

You and me on the most ordinary day.
And, you and me, this is the taste of spring.
You and me on the most ordinary day.

Can I tell you the names of the people in my face?
They are all from some kind of story.

Can we write them down, can we put them in a song?
Can we paint them in our place?

Hurricane

{My house in Gulfport, MS had 6 feet of water during Katrina. I moved to Nashville 10 days before the storm hit. The song is about a lot of things… but I guess it is mostly about being displaced from a disaster you didn’t directly experience.}

There’s a cottonmouth sunnin’ on my back porch

My wicker rocking chair is stuck beneath the stairs
Underwater in my hometown
And I’m up here in Tennessee watching my family
Wade for my momma’s wedding gown

Oooh she’s whistlin’

Oooh she’s twistin’ on you
Oooh she’s a-comin’ for, she’s a-comin’ for you

Not the only one in the attic’s a mad woman

She’s got her pictures in boxes, got her name on your locket
And it’s floating down the bayou to downtown
And I’m up here in Tennessee, watching my family
Wade for my momma’s wedding gown

Oooh she’s whistlin’

Oooh she’s twistin’ on you
Oooh she’s a-comin’ for, she’s a-comin’ for you

Come thou fount of every blessing

Tune my heart to sing this grace
Cause this one washed away all that I ever had to say

Calling Me

{This is a song inspired by some beautiful images from Marilynne Robinson’s book Gilead. The book, and the song, too I guess, is about living with death, and learning about what it means to love and grieve the things that pass you by. I jokingly call this my emotional power ballad… I mean, that’s kinda what it is.}

When the rest of the world is asleep

Do you remember that night when you and me
Pulled down the steeple of ash
The rain was coming down, I was filthy and black?
Sometimes I feel that my time
On earth is sorta defined

And my life is calling me

And I wonder what else it could be

There are times that I see and don’t see
Sometimes I feel that I’m changed
By those women on the hill in the rain

In this vision of earthly decay

I see that time will bear us all away
But I’m sad I won’t be here to see it fade

Skyline

{This is another old tune–I think I wrote this when I was 16!–that I revisited late in the recording process. I think there are some John-Painter-moments-of-genius in this one. This song is inspired by the Nashville skyline and one of my first visits here. I took out “Nashville” so people all around the world can convince their distant friends to be nearer!}

The weather here is perfect

I’ll lay it out frame by frame
I’ll write a plea for you to visit
On a 4×6 cardstock with your name

I know you can’t see it

But the grass out here is greener
I’ll remember this picture

Oh how I wish you were here

The air is cool at the wrong time of year
Did you see, on the bottom, the red and white lines?
The postman’s calling you to my skyline

My return address, it would really be complete

If you were right here with me
So I’ll peel the stamp and write persuasively:
I don’t really live here
But I swear it feels like home

This Modern History

{This song is my song about culture… I don’t think there is a way for me to talk about this song without sounding ridiculous(haha). Sometimes I get fed up with the way things are in our world because no one really stands for anything anymore–no one really wants anything to define them. This song is sort of about that? Maybe it’s not about anything?!}

I don’t know who I am when all I have to do is choose

What kind of place am I in when all I have to do is choose
You better turn me around, send me back to a different town
Because in this modern history, they’ve pushed it all into the middle
You better turn me around, send me back to a different town
Cause you can’t change my history, and push it all into the middle

They suppose I didn’t think I’d find something more here

They suppose I didn’t think I was looking for something more here
But suppose I was

I don’t know where I’ve been when all I have to do is choose

What kind of place am I in when all I have to do is choose
You better turn me around, send me back to a different town
Because in this modern history, they’ve pushed it all into the middle
You better turn me around, send me back to a different town
Cause you can’t change my history, and push it all into the middle

Moment

{This song is inspired by one of my favorite poems: “Arkansas Good Friday” by Franz Wright . He says it much better than I ever will.}

What lies beyond this momentary glimpse

Of feeling and time and presence
The end of this moment will simply begin
New water and light and substance

he words that are flowing will not frame this tent

This life that we all represent
The pain of our knowing that this time will end
A fear, a fiery lament

I am hurt by the past

Oppressed by the future
And blind to the moment

This fiery silence will one day transcend

I will go back to where I began

v

Scoundrel

{This song is inspired by Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Revelation.” I am a big fan of her work. This song has also had a different life with different lyrics… I loved reinterpreting it a couple of years down the road.}

I heard a chorus of heaven climbing upward in the woods tonight

I saw a pig in heaven, she was grunting with a secret life
Then I go down to my house where me and the devil are friends tonight
And he said

No one needs to know

No one needs to hear
No one needs to be told
You’re a scoundrel

Sometimes here in my place, we get to talking, I wear a different face

Then I go up to heaven, I watch the pig pull my face from my nape
Then i go back to my house where my friend the devil has me a new face
And a new place

Quick Bright Things

{This is a song about a scorned lover. Except I did the scorning… and I think he kinda deserved it? }

Quick bright things come to ruin

That’s why I never loved you
You can’t light my heart like a fuse
And expect it to fall down red, white and blue

Quick bright things come to ruin

That’s why I never watched you
In the sky I never joined you
Cause the light was inside me and it was shared with someone else

I never chose you because

I don’t think that love should spit and flicker and die away
For the sake of another quick bright day with you

Quick bright things come to ruin

That’s why I never watched you
But you, you kept comin’ down like lightning
But the light was inside me and it was shared

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