What Ails You

Manzanita I Lookout—lookout the dogwood
Wash the soil in mercury
Jumped a claim near the Lime Kiln city
Left for dead on the quartz where I sleep
Steller’s jay calling on my soul
For what I done near the meadow
Hey now stranger you’re coming with me
I’ll call her Manzanita

Osage Orange Early I saw the light
Heard the words loud and clear
As the shivers were taking hold
Early I saw the light like it was yesterday
Early I’d fade to black
Close the blinds
Not letting nothin’ in here
But I could always feel the light so near
Lately I’m inside the lampshade
Floating through a kerosene flame by the bow wood’s bow
Sittin’ here waiting for Osage, waiting for Osage
Genesis had it right
The key is the light
The key is the kerosene, the key is the light
Shining on for all the children of the world
And the Osage Orange from the Arkansas’ river bottom
How’d you ever really come this way?
Weathering the storm and the wind that came a-hollerin’
How’d you really make it all this way?

May Hey Sugarpine airlines
Please can you take one more
Gotta be flying me away from the ocean
I belong to the sunny dark wood
I belong with a hunting dog
But my hunting dogs are
Far away from the ocean
If we can’t fly away
We surely drown
It’s hard to find the surface
When there’s water all around
I did belong to a girl named May
By June May’d gone away
So June came along with me to the ocean
June was just along for the ride
She took out with the midnight tide
I missed May even with July
So I cried and I cried and I cried and I cried
This here song’s about a girl named May
Me and May’d go hunting all day
All the way to the ocean

Metronome I’m no metronome; and you’re so metropolitan
You run circles and circles around me
I’m no forward thinker; rather checking side to side
While you’re running in circles around me
This here assembly
Of disassembled melody
Assorted static dilemmas
Where’s my metronome? Seems my meter’s heading off
To the slow drag ensemble of a blues facade
You’re still metropolitan
And I was so far removed right then
I was so far removed my friend

Cat's Cradle You don’t have to second guess
I won’t expect nothing less
I know just how you feel
It just don’t seem very real
Let’s just go and hit the road
Roll a couple man let’s go
We don’t really need to pack that much
Just the tickets, some CD’s and such
There’s no answers in this song
Someone wrote them very long ago
But the crimson lights they hit the stage
And the guitar god – he makes it go away
Moon is rising on the right
Stop in Greenville for the night
The feedback ringing in my brain
When will we see them again?
Harper’s secret we will not forget
And Thurston led them through a second set
But the crimson lights they hit the stage
And the guitar gods – they make it go away

Silo Song Salt wind dash along a pastel plain
On the feathers of an immigrant constellation
Over the siren flyways of the mariposa lane
Above an outta-place silo for the alpine grain
Corduroy covered in the tanglewood holler
Running from the yard never felt so good
I’m just looking for ways to make you smile
Silhouette settles in angel hair
Wrapping itself in sweet suffocation
As the newfound rain come and settle aside the threads
Newfound morning rays
Vanish everything away
Corduroy covered in the tanglewood holler
Patchwork valley from above the San Joaquin
Running from the yard never felt so good before
Being in your arms never felt so good
I’m just looking for ways to make you smile
Salt wind dash along a pastel plain
Siren flyways of the Mariposa lane
Covered in the silo underneath the hay
Newfound morning rays
Beneath the sandy grains
Corduroy covered in the tanglewood holler
Being in your arms never felt so good
I’m just looking for ways to make you smile
But I’m just stumbling on ways to let you down again

Key of K If you think you’re looking for love I hope you won’t regret it
Maybe all that you need is what you have
If you think you’re looking for love I really hope you get it
K sees the chords in his dreams
We hope he won’t forget them
He’s shifting melodies all the time
And the song he sang’s what kept us sane
Until the key of K was all that remained
Between you and I and I and I
Shifting melodies all spelled out while you were resting well somewhere
Sensibility’s all tapped out now he’s straddling the fall line every time
Shifting melodies all spelled out
The key of K is all that’s around
Shifting melodies all set and then they’re gone
Shifting melodies all set down
The key of K is all that surrounds

Manzanita II Front door bloodied by a rattlesnake war
Cement rusted red
Bury it deep so the dogs don’t dig it up
And poison themselves again
Mr. Sutton our neighbor shot a rattler
As it was moving on over the lawn
Mr. Sutton gone away after the firemen came
But couldn’t revive his heart

Farealone Sound (Smoke in the Valley) Dawn breaks open on the Dardanelle Range
Morning frost is coming on
Mule deer grazing on the frozen green grass blades
Smoke in the valley should lift by late morning
If the fire lines hold on through the night
Seven embers fell down with the ash to the ground
They live on through the backfires

Clementine Bells Hundred years and I haven’t learned nothing
Drunk elixir modern Ponce De Leon
She’s got the Midas’ Touch of remarkable relations
Salt stone pillars everywhere I roam
Clementine singing songs about the solars
Coarse chamber bells come carrying along
As you were when you weren’t so weary
Well as you were Miss Ponce De Leon
Sure enough I’m gonna ride them waves again
Sure enough I’m gonna ride them waves
Ride them waves on a book of olden days
Ride them waves again
Clementine singing songs about the savior
Wearing fame and her marigolds around
As you were when you weren’t so weary
And the salt stone pillars weren’t chasing us around
Hundred years and I haven’t learned nothing
Clementine bells come carrying along
Hundred years and I haven’t learned nothing
And the salt stone pillars everywhere I roam
Sure enough I’m gonna ride them waves again

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