BLUE WATER
Yesterday the snow was nearly gone / Morning birds were singing with the dawn / Every sunrise makes the night less long / There's blue water in the cold, cold ground / Blue water in the cold, cold ground / I took a path that walked along the shore / Tried to sing a song I've sung before / But I don't even know the words anymore / There's blue water in the cold, cold ground / Blue water in the cold, cold ground / Are there reasons to resist the change? / Is there any gain / Just to stay the same / Just to stay the same / I look out at the water, dark and deep / It didn't used to look like much to me / I guess it's different than it used to be / Blue water in the cold, cold ground / Blue water in the cold, cold ground / I'm coming round / Coming round / Coming round
COLD COLD GROUND
She was born in the poor man's holler / Walked through the valley with the shadows all around / She found a way to make a dollar / Now she's lying in the cold, cold ground / Can you find her, Lord? / Can you hear me, Lord? / Can you find her, Lord? / Your child is in the meadow / She's lying in the cold, cold ground /
WORE ME DOWN
Walking alone through a city that I once called my home / And I feel the weight of time pressing on my bones / Everything here's like a memory that I can't let go / If I'm moving forward, then I'm moving slow / You wore me down / You wore me down / Nothing went wrong, but it didn't have to for it all to fall down / You wore me down / Used to think I'd be something when I was grown / Thought I'd be building empires on my own / Now I'm trying to find the strength I used to know / But I've been feeling tired since you've gone / You wore me down / You wore me down / Nothing went wrong, but it didn't have to for it all to fall down / You wore me down
OLD BARN
Every inch, hand-hewn, of your timbers loom above the smooth dirt floor / You're made of big oak trees that sang in the breeze on the ridge-top long ago / Every name in the neighborhood came to raise you one fine day / And they joined each joint at the perfect point / Til you're standing yet today / Old Barn / Made of nothing but hope and wood / Old Barn / Well, they built you when they built things good / Grain and oil and blood-soaked soil, I can smell those early days / Farrowin' sows and old milk cows and hot men stacking hay / I hear the heavy breath of birth and death that has labored in this place / And I can't help but know coming through your door that I've come unto a holy place / Old Barn / If you had a mind to you / Old Barn / You could tell us all a thing or two / Saturday night by the coal oil light they'd clear out some dancing room / And the sweat-stained shirts and gingham skirts all swayed to a fiddle tune / Now silence falls between your walls, your work and your play is done / Now you go on and sleep, lord you've earned your keep for every day yet to come / Old Barn / Every peg still fitting tight / Old Barn / Well they built you when they built things right
THE BELLE OF AMHERST
She lives alone up in her room and rarely ventures down / she does not cross her father's grounds for any house in town / For any house in town / Behold the Belle of Amherst, behind the parlor door / Who writes these letters to a world that never writes to her / That never writes to her / Her words are her companions, they keep good company / The brain is wider than the sky and deeper than the sea / And deeper than the sea / CHORUS / She always wears a dress of white, in every season 'round / And buries poems in a drawer where they will not be found / Where they will not be found / Much sense is starkest madness to the majority / Much madness is divinest sense, to those with eyes to see / To those with eyes to see / CHORUS
IF I MEET MY MAKER
NO MEMORY
I never cared too much for dancing / Or dressing up to go downtown / I'd spend my weekends hopping fences in search of starry nights under the moon / I love the rush of running water / The give of mud under my feet / And if I'd ever had a daughter, I'd bet it all that she'd have been like me / It's coming time to go / And there ain't one soul I know / No memory will hold me when I'm gone / No weary prayer will keep my spirit strong / No teary eye, no mournful cry / I will not linger long / No memory will hold me when I'm gone / I've never been much of a reader / It always felt like wasted time / Hearing about the lives of other people just makes me want to be out living mine / I spent a year out in the desert, but it made me lonesome for the rain / When it thunders from the heavens it feels like that old dark sky knows my name / CHORUS / I used to have a dog named Lady / The passenger's seat was her throne / And we would drive up to the Tetons 'til we felt like coming home / I wish I had a little money / I've grown tired of the plains / I want to be back in the mountains; I'd sink down to the earth and fade away / CHORUS