All lyrics by Mark Charles Heidinger
01 love is melancholy
shutter your eyes, calm the ringing in your ears… steady your breath, honey, lower your spear… we’ve been over this before, we both know we aren’t at war… the battlefield’s bloodless and vacant… still the belfry tolls every hour, on the hour… it’s getting louder… like some ancient and foreboding harbinger of what’s to come…
what’s to come? just another cumbersome argument over something older than the sun… there’s time left on the clock, but our loom’s completely shot… we’re tied up and tangled in knots… the troubled tales that we’ve been weaving with hidden meaning… they’re a bit deceiving… but i’m under no illusion… love is melancholy, but it’s all we’ve got… yeah, love is all we’ve got… it’s all we’ve got… it might be all you need, but it’s all we’ve got… love is all we’ve got…
skip ahead to the last act, study each and every line… look me in the eye and tell me I’m not left behind… we both knew this wasn’t easy, there are ruts in every road… honey, dancing is delicate & demanding… I can’t shake this nagging feeling that we’re both needing a little healing… i’m under no illusion… love is melancholy, but it’s all we’ve got… yeah, love is all we’ve got, it’s all we’ve got… well, it might be all you need, but it’s all we’ve got… on this magnetic rock, it’s all we’ve got… love, oh love is all we’ve got…
02 the lock & key
hold on… sit tight… I swear I’ll be right back… don’t cry… don’t cry… it’s only for a little while… well, I have been known to tell a fib or two… I stretch the T’s in truth… but not for lack of loving you… for loving you is all I can do…
sleep tight… rest right… on my word, the dark don’t bite… it’s only a passing phase… sure as day, the sun will cut right through the night… and I’ll peel the curtains back… you’ll hop right out of the sack… headlong into the morning light… with arms & eyes open wide…
deep breaths.. deep breaths… you’ve got a long way to go… you’re gonna need good fortune and great resolve… better pace yourself, it’s a heavy load to bear alone… the maps have all been burned… and the treasure you yearn for ain’t orphaned on the ocean floor… no, your heart is the lock & key…
03 all these songs sound the same
I saw a bluejay this morning, right out my window… flapping & singing, really making a fuss… a little finch came over to see the commotion… but that jaybird was rotten, foul-tempered wench… I scribbled it down, thought I might sing it well… figured by the last verse I might ring the right bell…
kinda funny how one thought triggers another… I was laying wide awake most of last night… reading Grapes Of Wrath for about the third time, but with a family of my own now, so it truly offends me… I guess things seem pretty good, better than back then… still, we better lock arms, pretty good ain’t no friend…
I grew up in the ’80s in the heart of the bluegrass… it never looked blue to me, but that’s another story… I filled up my days with sunburns & ballgames… never knew much worry… really didn’t know pain… still, my mother said, “son, keep an eye overhead… just ’cause some things look pretty don’t mean they’re your friends…”
speaking of friends, I’ve been blessed with an army… but cursed by a mission many moons away… I’m running out the clock out in the ether, just flapping and singing, really making a fuss… the songs that I sing, they all sound the same… just like prayers and little birds, everything sounds the same…
all these songs sound the same… but I still feel like singing… all my songs sound the same… but I’ll sing to my grave… all my songs sounds the same… but I still feel like singing ‘em… everything sounds the same from the bottom of a grave…
well, I’ve got thirty-five years under my belt… never was much for counting… mostly been about how I’ve felt… right I now I feel weary… pine-tarred & feathered… just flapping & singing, really making a fuss… the ache in my bones & the kinks in my neck might slow me down, but don’t bury me yet…
all these songs sound the same… but I still feel like singing… all my song sounds the same… gonna sing to my grave… all my songs sound the same, but I still feel like singing ‘em… yeah, everything sounds the same from the bottom of a grave…
