From Whitmans Country

G C Am D G C Am D G C You’re as free as a child with an orange-tipped plastic gun Am D toothless mouth full of “pows” as he points it at the sun G C Am D and you pull that trigger just by closing your eyes G C if your blood wants to sing, darling, let it sing Am D these parts rarely get a miraculous thing G C Am D and as many have said, you’ve got to live before you die C D You’ve been praying, I’ve been praying G D Am flightless birds need no reminding they’re flightless C D You’ve been praying, I’ve been praying G D Am sightless men need no reminding they’re sightless C but you’re free D from me G C Am D G C Am D G C and the light that you seek is destined to bleed Am D from fog-obscured street lamps and filling station marquees G C Am D but dust on the lens is no excuse not to see G C when the life that you need is tucked in between Am D overgrown cemeteries and electric fever dreams G C Am D we’re sparrows folded in Coors bottles floating to sea C D and there are days when the waves G D Am sound like the voice of my twin brother C D before the flames swallowed his name G D Am and he went shuffling into the body of another C D quietly G free Am D G down in the trailer country in the fall Am D G the rust is my blood is the flaming floor of leaves Am D G the radio’s reeling with lap steels and ghost while outside of the window Am D G fingers push up through the soil toward the smoke in the trees Am D and I am the stones carved and rooted in rows G and the bones ‘neath their steeples anchored in a cross-armed pose Am D and I am the stir in a step above ground G and the flesh on a frantic feel ‘neath the sound Am D and I am the fickle flame of my life G and the sweat on the grip of the omnipresent knife Am D that could easily sever these few strings as I lay asleep G C but I’m as free as a child with an orange-tipped plastic gun Am D toothless mouth full of “pows”, shaky sights on the sun G C Am D and I pull that trigger each time I close my eyes G C and the life that I need is smothered in weeds Am D is a warm living body on which the vultures still feed G C Am D G but it’s a mess no more violent or lovely than you and I