WELLSPRING lyrics

(2003, BLUE CORN MUSIC)

 

TRACE

First of many flowers

Growing close behind the wall

Flax and seed, want and need

The wonder of it all

There’s a place in that garden

We’ve both been there, darling

I won’t forget

That day we met long ago

 

Woods of miles and acres

Winding through the hills

Moaning of the barnyard dogs

And barbed wire fences

There’s a place in that countryside

You’ll build a house so deep and wide

I can see the stones

The fires and thrones of long ago

 

Long ago

Rooms of abandoned houses in my mind

Long ago

Back porch living suits me fine

There were paints of blue and green

I was somewhere in between

 

Mama rings the dinner bell

Women and men

Move towards the sacred sound

Of a chiming metal wind

Daddy he flips a dime

How will we survive this time

 

Long ago

There were sharecropping farmers on the land

Long ago

All that’s left are rusty nails in your hand

There were walls of yellow hue

Yeah, I learned a thing or two

The Trace winds 1000 ways

The Natchez drew it well

Their hallowed bones the native ones

Ours a merchants’ trail

There are places in that road

Where lie the seeds we sowed

I won’t forget

That day we met long ago

Long ago

 

MORTIFIED

I should have been ashamed

I should have been mortified

I should have hung my head

Dug me a hole and climbed inside

Cause I was able

But the crumbs on the table kept me satisfied

 

No one should walk this path alone

My path of loneliness and shame

I thought my heart would turn to stone

Before our eyes, and with your blessing

What made me a martyr

What makes me your outcast

I just wanted to feel something

 

I should have been ashamed

I should have been mortified

I should have hung my head

Dug me a hole and climbed inside

Cause I was able

But the crumbs on the table kept me satisfied

 

Hot off the press, come get the news

Right from the source of the scandal

About the dangers of the muse

And temptations too great to handle

What made me a martyr

What makes me your outcast

I just wanted to feel something

I just wanted to feel something

 

I should have been ashamed

I should have been mortified

I should have hung my head

Dug me a hole and climbed inside

Cause I was able

But the crumbs on the table kept me satisfied

 

Do I sound mean

Do I sound rude

Do you think me petty

Think me cruel

Was I in love with you or you or you or you

I tried to be so true so true so true

 

I should have been ashamed

I should have been mortified

I should have hung my head

Dug me a hole and climbed inside

Cause I was able

But the crumbs on the table kept me satisfied

And I should have been ashamed

 

JEWELS

It’s amazing to survive

How would I have known

There were jewels in my shoes

Hush now, don’t you cry

This may break your bones

But who wants to lose

 

In the long wait for timelessness

More than staying sane

Or being worthy of a name

Is that strange salvation

 

Shoulders growing wings

Taking to the air

Soaring who knows where

Five golden rings

There are reasons girl

That no one would choose

 

In the long wait for timelessness

More than staying sane

Or being worthy of a name

Is that strange salvation

 

MAGNOLIAS

I met you once in a living room in Jackson

Thought of you for six years or more

One hour, you were my secret standard

One night, you walked back through my door

Your lanky frame was not what I remembered

Waking from a long and fitful sleep

But after early morning conversation

I drove to north Texas in disbelief

 

That quaking in my heart was too deep for words

It tremored and it trembled and it ached

We spoke our peace out on the Golden Gate Bridge

And sealed it with a kiss under magnolias

 

Fortunes not made and not discovered

There were mentors, we were protégés

From one rite of passage to another

We roughed through the wellsprings of our early days

Underneath that surface there was something

Only you and I could understand

I made my commitment to that long ago

Standing in the hallway down in Dixieland

 

Cause that quaking in my heart was too deep for words

It tremored and it trembled and it ached

We spoke our peace out on the Golden Gate Bridge

And sealed it with a kiss under magnolias

 

There’s one thing I love more than Austin

Or curving round the Frio on her turquoise streets

It’s your melancholy dread of Sunday evenings

Your shivering body when it sleeps

The future’s looking stormy here before us

Wars, calamities and tribulations

We’ll hatchet down the windows if we have to

And stand the watch together till the morning

 

Cause that quaking in my heart’s too deep for words

It tremors and it trembles and it aches

We spoke our peace out on the Golden Gate Bridge

And sealed it with a kiss under magnolias

 

COLORADO WOMAN

The western prairie stretches far away from home

Lose your troubles in the big sky

Thought I’d move along like the ranchers do

Stake a claim on a quiet space or two

Miles away, still I recall your face

And your lines

I once resided in a place

Where riverboats lined up the big muddy shore

Until I couldn’t stand my sunny South anymore

 

Tonight I want to be a strong Colorado woman

I don’t want to be your Mississippi girl

There are times I need you to hold on to

But this time I got to hold on by myself

 

I tumbled with the dustbowls

Across the Oklahoma plain

Headed westward towards the mountains and the rain

The meadow of the timberline

With your image still haunting my mind

 

Tonight I want to be a strong Colorado woman

I don’t want to be your Mississippi girl

There are times I need you to hold on to

But this time I got to hold on by myself

 

Take me down

Take me down

Won’t you please melt me down

But let me up

Help me up

I want back on my feet again

 

I’m going where the Rockies and the river collide

Formed like a woman stretched across the great divide

Far from the land I betrayed

And what would be the price if I stayed

 

Tonight I want to be a strong Colorado woman

I don’t want to be your Mississippi girl

There are times I need you to hold on to

But this time I got to hold on by myself

By myself

 

MISTRESS

Who was my mother

Who was my father

All I’ve known is a whip upon my back

My skin is yellowed by much more than weakness

And wise beyond the years of the blue and the black

My arms were never strong enough to stir molasses

My eyes watch riverboats as they go by

Some call me mistress, but I wish that I was cargo

Floating down the Brazos in that chariot to the sky

 

Oh Rachel, won’t you lie next to me

Tonight and every night to come

And won’t you calm all that’s raging inside me

Cause outside’s just a battlefield that Santa Ana won

 

My people, they worked from can’t see to can’t see

Traded in and out from the grassy shores

They say there’s something about me

Flying like a bird

Never known freedom before

I wear dresses of silks and threaded satins

Some gowns were only meant to bear a woman’s breast

I’ll stand down every white man in this county

But Columbus, you are dying

And I’m no different from the rest

 

Oh Rachel, won’t you lie next to me

Tonight and every night to come

And won’t you calm all that’s raging inside me

Cause outside’s just a battlefield that Santa Ana won

 

I was born in the hills of Kentucky

But never native to the auction block arrest

Headed Southbound as a captive in this country

Just like the cowboys drove their cattle through the West

You can read all our names in the records

You can deny all the days as they go down

There’s a brick-laid pathway calling you to find us

Underneath a golf course in an east Texas town

 

Oh Rachel, won’t you lie next to me

Tonight and every night to come

And won’t you calm all that’s raging inside me

Cause outside’s just a battlefield that Santa Ana won

Santa Ana won

Santa Ana won

 

TEXAS TWO STEP

You’re what I call reasonably attractive

With an ego that’s hyperactive

Standing there playing tricks on me

Cause I’m the girl you happen to see

Well, I know that I’ve been hurt before

And maybe I looked twice when you walked through that door

That don’t mean I want some cheap romance

I only came here to dance

 

Texas two step

Guide me with your eyes

Texas two step

Got to learn how to slide

Shuffle, shuffle

Spin me around

You got to hold me up

When you dip me down

 

The band is playing and you were saying

Don’t lift your feet too far from the floor

The fiddle’s crying and Lord knows you’re trying

To spin me around one time more

I love it when you put your hand right

Under my shoulder

And guide me across the floor

Under the circumstances

This could really mean something

And this song’s still got a few seconds more

 

Texas two step

Guide me with your eyes

Texas two step

Got to learn how to slide

Shuffle, shuffle

Spin me around

You got to hold me up

When you dip me down

 

MGM GRAND

There’s a world of people dying out there

Many of them on the east side

I never staked a claim with the rich folks

Though I am one

The New York, New York casino waves

As I fly towards Las Vegas

I gambled ten dollars there once

Cause it’s all I had

 

The MGM Grand 
Could steal the heart of a man

But the one next to me

Gives me mine back again

 

The stewardess says, “Good morning

And welcome to Southwest Airlines

This morning we’ll be offering 
Your choice of juice or coffee”

And a man with an accent in 19B

He’s confused, he pleads for a cup of tea

She’s mad but brings it because she must

And his thank you, it melts all of us

 

The MGM Grand 
Could steal the heart of a man

But the one next to me

Gives me mine back again

 

I fly away from my beloved

He says our honeymoon period has ended

And somewhere through the tears

I ponder o’er the years

That taught me so much

And so little

 

“Excuse me miss, are you a writer

I’d like to get your autograph now

If you’ll be famous”

Then he said, “I live in San Francisco

And I work for the immigration office

Of the United States government

I’m going to visit my brother in Las Vegas”

Our plane descends into the desert

I pretend that I am weightless

There’s glitter and there’s glare

On the landscape

 

And there’s a world of people dying out there

Many of them on the east side

I never staked a claim with the rich folks

Though I am one

Though I am one

 

HEART AND SOUL

I look at you and smile and say my baby

And I watch you walk away

You’re a big boy now

On a sunny day

May the wind blow your direction

As you fly from town to town

And lift you up

Not throw you down

 

Southern breezes may circle

But they won’t last for long

Not even hurricanes can keep us

From hearing the song

 

Something in your brown eyes shining baby

The tune has swallowed you whole

You’re a big boy now

Fighting heart and soul

Heart and soul

 

TACOMA BLUES

I’m lonely out here baby

I want to come back home

Forget this autumn ocean town

Opportunities tomorrow

This life is good for no one

It tears my heart in two

I want to see you smile

And feel you

 

I’m standing in the shadows

I’m howling at the sound

Inspiration fails me

Nothing seems to ease me

Sad songs could drive me down

Drive me down

Another day of rain

In another town

 

These days everything changes

I try to think ahead

But keep looking behind

Another host

Just another stranger

I want to be stronger

You know I want to be stronger

 

Say your prayers to Jesus

Please say one for me

May He help me do for others

May He set me free

To think of you only

To smile graciously

And not to tell the friendly people

To go away from me

 

Because I’m lonely out here baby

I want to come back home

Forget this autumn ocean town

Opportunities tomorrow

This life is good for no one

It tears my heart in two

I want to see you smile

And feel you

I want to see you smile

And feel you