Jalopy Heart
What could you want with my jalopy heart?
What could you want with my jalopy heart?
It’s rusty and battered and falling apart
You’re probably wastin’ your time tryin’ to get it to start
My jalopy heart
Though I still may know how to love
I still may know how to love
I still may know
What could you want with my rattlesnake skin?
What could you want with my rattlesnake skin?
I’ve shed it before and I’ll shed it again
Leave it useless, grey as an old man’s chin
My rattlesnake skin
Though I still may know how to feel
I still may know how to feel
I still may know
What could you want with my antique music box voice?
What could you want with my antique music box voice?
It’ll play you a song, a faintly audible noise—
Now a dirge but once a song of rejoice
My antique music box voice
Though I still may know how to sing
I still may know how to sing
I still may know
Through I still may know how to love
I still may know how to love
I still may know
Colas
Chorus
Colas, Colas
Colas, y Nicolas
Headed to Chile
But you never got across
No you couldn’t get out of Mexico
Once you got in
Now you’re going to have a baby
And she’ll be a Mexican
The people back home
Remained confused
Never been to a fandango
In southern Veracruz
Chorus
Dear Margarita
Cousin of Dona Juana
Wants you to eat
Her tamales of iguana
Chorus
They say two stars
Fell from the sky
When the baby comes
You’ll find them in her eyes
Chorus
Aqui ya me despido
Porque no puedo mas
Aqui acabo cantando
Los versos de Colas
Chorus
Beatrice
Go ahead and pound me with your tiny fists, Beatrice
Pull at my seams, watch me come unstitched, Beatrice
I heard you coming before I saw you—your jangling wrist, Beatrice
Should’ve gone the other way towards a rattlesnake’s hiss, Beatrice
If only you hadn’t bloomed like a jacaranda tree
If only things were up to me
If only I were a current in the river as it flows
Where I watched you dip your toes
Si ra na na na na na
Of the hundreds of flowers, I can’t tell which is which, Beatrice
But they’ll make you a dress with a vine for a cinch, Beatrice
Tell me is it merely a will o’ the wisp, Beatrice…
To think I could make you less weeping willowish, Beatrice?
If only you hadn’t bloomed like a jacaranda tree
If only things were up to me
If only I were a fish in the river as it bends
Where I watched you slowly wade in
Si ra na na na na na
Have you ever seen a badger and armadillo kiss?
Have you ever watched a sidewinder flail and twitch?
Beatrice
Once when the moon hung low like this, Beatrice
Two tamarind trees bent to touch through the mist, Beatrice
If each love story has an archivist, Beatrice
What will he write of my cowardice, Beatrice?
If only you hadn’t bloomed like a jacaranda tree
If only things were up to me
If only I were the sand of the wide Balsas River
Where I watched you dry off and shiver…
Si ra na na na na na
The Persimmon Tree
Oh, Jenny, just because I love you
Your momma’s heart is going to falter
Well, I sure hope it recovers
By the time we reach the altar
Chorus
Oh, Jenny, Jenny, Junebug
Under the persimmon tree
Your momma’s right
You are too good for me
Oh, Jenny, just because I love you
Your momma’s threatening Alabama
Tell her we need her around
Because soon she’ll be a grandma
Chorus
Oh, Jenny just because I love you
Your momma’s cursing her rotten luck
Remind her to be grateful
You’re not dating that other schmuck
Chorus
Oh, Jenny, just because I love you
Your momma’s come all undone
I own no suit, I have no job
But soon I’ll be her son
Chorus
Beekeeper
The grass with its fever
The temper of the rain
The soft muffled dream
Our love became
A fist of bees
Buzzing underwater
A tethered steer
Marked for the slaughter
Love’s a beekeeper
It’s a beekeeper
Drawing honey from our hearts
I play the unsound sleeper
To her fire and brimstone preacher
Love assigns us such strange parts
My heart failed me
As if powered by broken bellows
From an old pump organ
Its keys aged yellow
Just when I needed
It the most
For reasons as inexplicable
As the Holy Ghost
Love’s a beekeeper
It’s a beekeeper
Drawing honey from our hearts
I play the auctioneer going cheaper
To her anchor plunging deeper
Love assigns us such strange parts
Love smoked us out
Confusion set in
The bees sputtered
As if drunk on bathtub gin
Wings a ghostly white
Little stained glass pictures
In a church, in a snow storm
Turned our hearts bitter
Love’s a beekeeper
It’s a beekeeper
Drawing honey from our hearts
I play the waterlogged weeper
To her jukebox dreamer
Love assigns us such strange parts
Carpenter Bird
Before this song truly begins
For your permission I ask
If you’ve ears you will lend
I hope I’m up on the task
If you’ve a heart to mend
You’ve found a place to rest at last
In the forest wandering
Nothing but my thoughts stirred
I found my heart was pounding
In time with what I heard
On my chest it was knocking
Oh, the carpenter bird
Men built rickety wagon wheels
For to cross the countryside
And then came bridges of steel
For to cross the rivers wide
But nothing compares to the feel
Of the bed he crafts for his bride
I was looking for a reason
To explain why things occur
Why some commit treason
Others follow the herd
Why some disregard the seasons
Others the carpenter bird
Handle the carpenter’s tools
Make sure you don’t cut your hand
But if you go to the carpenter’s school
And spend time with the land
You won’t get fooled by the fool
Nor by any other man
With this verse we stop
Singing the carpenter’s song
Just as his rhythm from the treetops
Pauses as the sun withdraws
For I believe I just felt a drop
And the road home tonight is long
I Have Wasted My Life
At a cabin in the woods
Deep in the Ozarks
Eating wild turkey
As the sky turns dark
Moon a jagged hole
In the gravelly sky
Finally at ease
Nothing to justify
Oh I have wasted my life
Gray bats circle
On a predetermined course
My heart beating
Like a fenced-in horse
To live out here
Where I was born
Still clings to my skin
A blackberry thorn
Oh I have wasted my life
My people taught me
To try and do right
In a world as mean
As a Branson cockfight
So I got a degree
The finest school out East
Now I hardly go back
Last chorus but not least
Oh I have wasted my life
El Corrido del Borracho
Nursing a Negro Modelo
I look across the plaza to the church
Battered by rain and neglect
Its eight bells like stout pigeons perched
It’s late evening but muggy
And from the balcony I can almost touch
The fat electric wires
Through which I hear the current rush
The beer is warm and sour
But it cost me less than a dollar
Kate comes out to see me
I remember when I first saw her
I pictured us in Tampico
In a hammock on the beach
But I quickly realized
She’s as self-centered as me
I’m sufficiently reticent
To drive her back into the bar
The police below are busy
Harassing each passing car
Then a man on a bike
Turns the corner below, falls flat
Not even sticking a foot out
And the police get a good laugh
The man stumbles up
Throw his leg over the bike
Then he stares up at me
And he’s drunk, all right
But his look is steady, serious, and has a dark pull
That makes me feel complicit in something terrible
Though I’m not sure what or why
And in this huge, awful moment his eyes
Two fat spiders crawl inside me and leave their eggs
I return to the bar
For another beer
Ask Kate to dance
And hold her near
Be Like A Ghost
I spent 16 dollars on beer I never drank
I spent 3 hours in line at the bank
I spent 2 years on a heart but it just sank
I spent several summers waiting for apples from a barren tree
I spent too much of my childhood in front of a TV
I spent 2 years on a heart that in love could not believe
Chorus
Be like a ghost—find a new heart to haunt
I can’t believe there’s anything still here that you’d want
Be like a ghost
I spent 300 dollars on a banjo I never pick
I spent the afternoon out in the rain—enough to make me sick
I spent two years on a heart with walls forest thick
I spent every hour while I was with you
Spending all of my heart but it just left me blue
I spent two years on a heart; I guess I had nothing better to do
Chorus
Be like a parachute—open your heart up
Not for me – it’s too late – but maybe there’s someone else to interrupt
Be like a parachute
Donkey In My Soul
Wish I had a donkey in my soul
Carry all my burdens home
All those things for which I can’t atone
I can sell but I can’t disown
Wish I had a donkey in my soul
Wish I had a cellar in my chest
Store the fruit when times are pressed
When winter covers the ground with its vest
Give me somewhere warm where I can rest
Wish I had a cellar in my chest
Wish I had a mousetrap in my mouth
Snag my tongue like a nail snags a blouse
Stop me before things head south
Before all I hold dear I renounce
Wish I had a mousetrap in my mouth
Wish I had an anthem in my lungs
Instead of this ladder with no rungs
‘Cause as I get old, my heart grows young
Forgets all the songs it has sung
Wish I had an anthem in my lungs
Wish I had a sinkhole in my veins
Which map my arms like highway lanes
And so that after each time it rains
I can wash away all my aches and pains
Wish I had a sinkhole in my veins
Wish I had a plough in my back
Drag it behind me to cover my tracks
As I am swallowed by the night’s mouth of black
I can’t make up for all the things I lack
Wish I had a plough in my back
When You Are Still
Chorus
How I love, how I love when you are still
Like a bird, like a bird on my windowsill
Like a bee, like a bee in a daffodil
How I love, how I love when you are still
Still as a bee
Yes, then I can see
Why I fell for you way back when
You are so beautiful
I’ve tried to be dutiful
To the lovers that we might have been
Chorus
‘Cause when you’re still
Then I can fill
You up like a pitcher with no brim
Still water shows
Us what we know--
Our dreams however inarticulate and dim
Chorus
‘Cause when we talk
Amidst corn stalks
You sway as they do with the breeze
The world I’ve built
It walks on stilts
Oh watch how it falls down with such ease
Chorus
Let Me Rest
I am surely a sinner
Though I’m not sure all I’ve done
But man is the basest of all
And He sees into our hearts
What a terrifying thing
It’s been so since before man’s Fall
Let me rest in the wake of the Lord
Let me rest in the wake of the Lord
If I am to be saved
Can I dig my own grave?
Let me rest in the wake of the Lord
He tore down our cities
Burned them to the ground
Blotted out the deeds of man
For the covenant was broken
So the sun stood still
So many things I don’t understand
Let me rest in the wake of the Lord
Let me rest in the wake of the Lord
I am tired and sickly
May the End of Days pass quickly
Let me rest in the wake of the Lord
