Solid Ground

I could get you a drink of water or I could give you a little air
I could answer most any question darlin
That you ask me if you dare
And in the wink of an eye you’ll feel better
In the wink of an eye you’ll feel fine

I can make you a little nervous I can make you a little mad
I can make you a turkey sandwich darlin
Won’t you tell me why you feel so bad

Chorus:
And in the wink of an eye you’ll feel better
In the wink of any eye you might feel fine
Oh, in the wink of an eye you can turn this love around
The minute that you speak your mind
You find yourself on solid ground

I can get you the Sunday paper I can get you to laugh sometimes
But I can’t decipher all your silences
I cannot read between your lines

Chorus

I could get you a drink of water
I could give you a little air…

Family History

I can see the old home place
Where Grandma’s cornflowers and queen-ann’s lace
Line the gravel one-track path
Through the fields of yellow grain

And they were only half-way young
The farmer’s daughters and farmer’s sons
That married in this cross-roads church
Near the Indiana line

Chorus:
When they walked together down the state line road
With their arms around each other in their dusty clothes
One foot in Ohio and the other walked
The other time zone

Half a dozen sisters born
Snapping beans and shucking corn
They gathered round the old upright piano
With their songs and violins
And I remember very well
All the stories we heard tell
About a working horse named Red
And how they cried then put him down

Chorus

Now the barn is falling in
Timbers blown by a century-old wind
But you can hear the creak and sigh
Of the boys who once slept there
And as a young girl I had this dream
As I lay down by the old farm stream
I rocked in great-great grandad’s arms
With the aunties all around

Then we all walked together down the state line road…

When I Was A Girl

When I was a girl I knew this girl
She lived in the white house at the corner
Her mother flew airplanes and drank hard liqueur
She was not a good driver and she never stayed home

When I was a girl I knew this girl
She lived in the red brick house across the street
By the time she was fourteen she was already missing
By the time she was fifteen, she was lost, she was lost forever

Chorus:
Our doors flew open our doors slammed closed
We rode bicycles and stubbed our toes
And what was strange then is so strange now
But you know, things were always, things were always
Just about the way they seemed

When I was a girl I knew this boy
He lived in the house with all the daffodils
He was always a loner, really something of a misfit
His mother and his father sent him somewhere to another school

Chorus

When I was a girl I knew these kids
We lived in the houses on our tree-lined street
We knew about each other and some of our big secrets
But we didn’t know each other
We didn’t really know each other at all

Chorus

Highwire

I’m walking a high wire over an ocean
Yesterday’s sighs are tomorrow’s tears
Burning desire, tender regret
Look in the fire can you feel it yet
Or will you go away again.

Ice on the window white widening sky
What can you see in your lover’s eye
Shining, reflecting, a mirror of your soul
Look in those eyes through the winter cold
And you see that they are green

And I see you watching me

What is a heartbeat held in a hand
What is the love between a woman and a man
The imperfection, unfinished truth
There are those things that you always lose
So you fly away for today

So you fly away or you stay

I’m walking a high wire over an ocean
Ice on the window, white widening sky
Look in the fire see your reflection
And hold my heartbeat in your warm hand
Do we fly away do we stay

Do we fly away or do we stay

Seventeen

Kicking up sidewalk dust, the streets can be mean
Wondering where the hell can you go now
Singing with the gutter girls, all alone in a lonely world
Nobody’s homeboy, where you been old man
You’re seventeen
Mama, she’s nowhere, your dad’s in a jail
Who told you they’d love you forever
Little man little man make your way on your own
No, they can’t see your eyes are on fire
And your heart’s in the mire

Chorus:
Seventeen, you got a lot of life behind you
Seventeen, you got a lot of life behind you
Seventeen, you’ve got a bright light inside you
Seventeen, you know what I mean

Seventeen’s a shadow, he’s barely a man
Still burning down doors of desire
Smoke another cigarette hitch a ride down the road
Say goodbye to the boys who once knew
That other you

Chorus

Someone found seventeen riding high on a wave
The water had swallowed his name
Seventeen died and there’s no one to blame for it
No one to claim him at all, no one to call…

Way Back When

You’re floating through the air and in the shadows
And you’re riding down this river’s rapid stream
Past your days of drunken picnics and parades
Through your tunnels dark, the demons and charades
On to where you stop and see yourself today
Sort of plain and ordinary
You were not a saint not an angel
You were not a good homecoming queen
But you were there, there were flowers in your hair
While your mind was off in the elsewhere

Chorus:
Riding silent in the back of someone’s car
With a knapsack and a Yamaha guitar
Headed someplace else or headed home again
Way back then Way back when

All the books you read in your lifetime
And all the conversations that you had
What you said, fading pictures in your head
All the arguments that God was nearly dead
You were so damn smart, how easy you forget
The details and de-railings
You were not the rock not the island
You were clearly not invincible
But you were there, there were fireworks in the air
While your mind was off in the elsewhere

Chorus

You’re still floating through the air and in the shadows
And you’re riding down this river’s rapid stream
In the day you watch your children on parade
In the quiet night time you turn another page
Contemplation is a luxury these days
While your mind is off in the elsewhere

Chorus

Bustin' Loose

Girl behind the counter, she’s looking pretty good
Taking down her orders just the way a good girl should
She’s got a pocket full of dollars and a suitcase in the back
And tonight she smiles politely at all the guys who give her flack

Chorus:
Oh she sat up straight last night in her restless bed
Restless yearnings whirling round in her head
And then she took the keys to her Daddy’s car
She is bustin loose bustin loose bustin loose

Mommy’s in the kitchen staring at the fridge
Trying to remember what she bought to feed the kids
She’s got a card inside her pocket and a list of books to read
And some time to take when Dad comes home to hit the library

Chorus

Fifty year old widow working on a line
Packing up fresh chicken parts and keeping track of time
She’s got a number in her pocket and her sister’s boss’s name
And now things are looking better - she’s walking off this job today

Chorus

What They Write About

What is it she writes about in the dark of her dreams alone
What is it she writes about, what small secret remark to the wind
The daily tears and mends,
The way her heart bends to the music in her baby’s eyes
She sings about the coming and the going of each day
The reminders of where her pieces lay

Her scattered conversations gone astray,
She thinks of things she will not do today
She reads a book, takes a look in the mirror and wonders aloud:
Is mother looking down

What is it he writes about in the heat of his dreams alone
What is it he writes about,
What poetry does he seek where he roams
Impossible romance,
The way his heart danced to the music in his baby’s eyes
He sings about the fear of having missed a boat,
Life afloat on a false dream
In a very cold sea

He takes a drag on his lonely cigarette,
His island of so many old regrets
As days go by and years pass on he can’t forget what he has done
Unforgiven one, he thinks he is to blame

What is it they write about in the deep of this dream today
What is it they write about, what small secret revealed on the wind
The ladies in the park, the way their dogs bark
Ah, the music in their baby’s eyes
They sing about the coming and the going of each day
The poetry in things they say
Over supper
And afterward

Could This Be Love

You are driving down a highway headed somewhere south of here
Riding low inside a fast red car
You are so funny, he’s still laughing at your jokes and tall tall tales
He doesn’t know what’s on your mind

Chorus:
Could this be love could this be love or is this just infatuation
Are you really seeing stars or is this just imagination
Leading you along again
Or are you reading wrong again

You are sitting at a table in this broken down hotel
Eating your breakfast, eating very slowly
You’re looking hard into his big brown eyes - into his smile
Trying to see what’s on his mind

Chorus

You are lying on his blanket in the middle of a park
Watching the clouds behind the tall dark trees
You think it might have been the wine
Or was it just the way you danced
After the band packed up to leave

Chorus

Look Out My Window

Now that I’m settled in, folks have all gone
I will cradle the sweater they left here
Look at the pictures up on the wall
I remember a few but not all

He’ll come to visit me, he’ll sit in the lobby
He’ll talk with the old fellas there
He’s not a bad man, he’ll come eventually
To spin me around in my chair

And when the sweet smell of summertime fills my room
We can look out my window and fly

I was a mother and I was a schoolteacher
I was a fairly good wife
I planted flowers, I read from my bible
I led what I felt was a good life

And when the sweet smell of summertime fills my room
I can look out my window and fly

I see a young girl her hair blows behind her
She’s running through my daddy’s clover
All of my cousins hiding in tall grasses
Now that our supper is over

And the sweet smell of summertime fills the air
And I think that I’m already there

I’ll send and angel to speak with my grandaughter
I’ll let her know that I’m just fine
And I’ll be delighted to speak with my own mother
Already thirty years gone

And when the sweet smell of summertime fills my room
I will look out my window and fly
When the sweet smell of summertime fills my room
I will look out my window and fly…

Carnival

Stepping out on a quiet street
Who’s to say who you might meet
It could hit you had like a memory
Or roll on by like a tumbleweed
Out of shadow a crazy dream unfolds
Like there was meant to be
A chance for all the lonely hearts
To dance together for eternity

Chorus:
See them dancing, whirling around and around
Falling falling lost in a carnival of sound
You hear them, somebody’s calling your name

Now the band plays a sad old tune
It’ll make you cry beneath a yellow moon
Or a two-step melody
To set your feet in motion again
Waltzing by in a street lamp’s glow
You think you see someone you know
From a place only lovers go
From another dream so long ago

Chorus

In a moment outside of time
It’s a carnival inside your mind
Soon enough the dawn will come
And cast its light on everyone

Chorus

Follow Me

I was sorting out the many blessings of my life
I was standing on a shoreline
All my new-found treasure, precious gems now left behind
I was never sure that they were ever mine

And then I felt a gentle tugging at my hand
Pulling me along the shifting sand
And a song so sweet a voice so very clear:
Follow me

I was in the middle of a dark dark dangerous dream
I was thunder on the horizon
All my best defenses were still never strong enough
I was so so tired of all the fighting

And then I felt a gentle tugging at my hand
Pulling me along to safer land…

I am just a traveler, a sympathetic face
I am walking a crooked road
But I have learned to listen to an inner, stirring place
And it tells me where I should go

Now and then I feel the tugging at my hand
Pulling me along to some new land…