Shaking Like A Flame
Blisters on my fingers
Alcohol on my breath
On the kind of night
Too easy to forget
Surrounded by rows and rows
Of the same house
Stretched out under the sky
Like a cemetery that just waits for you to die
And I’m burning like a fire
Shaking like a flame
Running from the dead
It’s so hard to feel alive
When everything tonight, seems so lifeless
I can see my fate
Age with my fathers skin
It won’t let me forget
How I end
And like him, the same things
That make me happy to be alive
Are the same damn things
That keep me up at night
And I’m burning like fire
Shaking like a flame
Running from the dead
Trying to fool myself Into thinking
I don’t need something to believe in
But never again
Will I let my life
Slip through my hand
Without holding on
Never again
Will I blame anyone
But myself
For what I don’t become
Poor Boy
Honey, try on this new dress
Throw on some shoes
I just got paid
And their ain’t nothing left to lose
Ain’t got no ring
For your finger
Ain’t no money
Being a rock n roll singer
The bells at the courthouse ring
Every time a poor boy dreams
Spent your whole life crawling out a hole
Just to fall back down
Honey, call the preacher
Call all your friends
The night ain’t over
‘Til everybody sins
Ain’t got no church
Until tomorrow
Tonight I’ll do anything
But beg, steal, or borrow
I can’t promise
I wont change
Only a fool
Wants to stay the same
Some got nothing
Some nothing to lose
I ain’t got nothing
To live up to
Headstones and Dead Leaves
I don’t want you to die for me
Or give up anything that you love
I know the world can be cruel enough
And headstones and dead leaves
Are just reminders of
What happens to living things
like us
I don’t want you to cry over me
Or be anything that I know you’re not
Even when everything you ever though you wanted
Turns out not to be enough
And empty roads and willow trees
Are just reminders of
What its like to be lonely things like us
Outside the street lights scrape into the sky
And lean like skeletons trying to hold up the night
While all the regrets we’ve carried our whole lives
Get buried in the earth
And we’ll walk away alive, yeah we’ll walk away alive
Time Rolling
I can still see your mother
Dancing in the yard
Redheaded skin
Left with a summer scar
Holding on to you
With what she had left
And time rolling
Whole lives stolen
And the summer sun can try
But it can’t erase
The lines bad luck
Has drawn on your face
But you’re laughing
Like you did
In better days
I was driving all night
You were laying in the back
Running to your bed
Before your will begins to slack
You didn’t believe me
When I told you you where home
Days Go By
The days go by
Even when you don’t want them to
The sun outside
Lets you know there’s living to do
And I get scared sometimes
That I’ll work my whole life and die
Before I find the purpose
To my being alive
But I’ve got a bible, baby
With the shape of a whiskey bottle cut out
A whole lot of living left in me
One foot in heaven and a dirty mouth
I know time changes a lot of things
But I’m afraid I can’t be fixed
But I would give up everything
Not to feel like this
From 231
All the way down 96
The telephone poles
Lift out of the earth like a crucifix
And when the sun goes down
The only thing you can hear
Is that restless feeling
Drift across the northern hemisphere
But I’ve got a bible, baby
And a picture of Jesus on my wall
Neither one can save me
Once my faith in everything’s gone
I want to lay under the blue
Blue sky and feel
Like I’m whole again
As it was in the beginning
You can damn sure bet
It will be in the end
There’s no sense in running
From the things that cut you down
Someday you’ll look over your shoulder
To find they’re still around
American Bruises
American cities kissed by open sky
while the years scrape at your skin
Spending your whole life trying to erase
the person you know you’ve been
Holding on to every single breath
Chased by nicotine
Walking away from a future
led in the pursuit of buying things
Sometimes the lips don’t need to move
for the heart to make a desperate sound
If I’m hell bound,
come on light this body up and we’ll burn it down
Because you know a bruise only lasts
long enough for the pain to pass
Getting buried in the day to day
Scared of how it feels
Hoping someday that this town repays
Everything it steals
Holding on to every single breath
Watching your friends get old
Your scars can tell you about where you’ve been
But not where you need to go
Sometimes it takes giving up everything
to see the things you really need the most
The Reckless
Twenty straight days of rain
And a cold dull pain
Haunt this house
Every morning
The daylight breaks
And I wake up wishing
I was somewhere else
The life of the reckless
I dream at night
No home, no plan, no ties
And when my blood stops running
So will I
Locusts and the memory
Of the wild me
Lay dead outside
No radio
And no TV
They only make me
Feel less alive
Devil’s In the Details
Dead and gone are our heroes, our poets, our saviors
Buried in the shadows of the chain stores downtown
While the ghosts of every heart we’ve ever broken
Spend their nights chasing us down
Just like a lie
I can feel the strain
Of the truth slipping away
Erased, and trying to fight its way out of me
So lets rally around our cities, light up your torches
Run everyone out that doesn’t think like us
And tomorrow if the world dangles its existence
We’ve only ourselves to blame for what we’ve done
The light from these billboard painted stars
Burns holes into unsuspecting hearts
As Far As Fear Will Take You
Run as far as fear will take you
Down a highway late at night
Running our mouths about the government
And hoping like hell we make it home alive
Two and a half weeks of living with a purpose
Cut across the heart of America
Hoping to see things a little bit clearer
And lose the desperation tailing us
So just follow the lines
And throw the map out and drive
And let fate be the guide
Hold everything tight
Roll the windows down and breathe in the air of this country
Watch the moon roll across the dash
Why do somethings seem to take forever
When the things you want so bad don’t seem to last
You fell asleep with your head on the window
I saw the sun rise at the Tennessee line
For a second I saw myself a year ago
Before I knew what it felt like to be alive
Breathe Life Into Me
Farewell dear friends I hope I never hurt you
Long live the love you gave to me
Someday we will be reunited
And we’ll once again tell the stories of our history
But for now
I need something else
Somewhere else
Something to breathe life into me
Cut these strings, these tangled things
That keep their hold on me
Tell my mother when you see her that I love her
I’ll always have her blood running through me
Tell her that some people are just born restless
And the longer you hold on to them the more they try to break free
Tell her that I…I need something else
Somewhere else
Something to breathe life into me
Cut these strings, these tangled things
That keep their hold on me
You know I’ll be back someday
There’s only so much pain one heart can take
Come the morning, you’ll find
The only thing left of me is the memory I left behind