Deadeye Lyrics

Peregrine

I’m leaving here tomorrow

For a place I don’t exist,

Where I claim to burn my sorrows

And my heart don’t beat the heaviest.

There I fold my worries over

And line them up under your moon.

I let wings sprout from their shoulders

So they can worry me all the way back to you.

You know I don’t mean to upset you,

And my windy words are meager.

On an island, set to perish or be rescued,

I’m not espoused to either.

That day, even the sun was afraid of you

And the weight you carried,

So you saluted every ghost you’ve ever prayed to,

And then buried it where bones are buried.

So as our grief falls flat and hollow

Upon a billion blooded sea,

All our worst ideas are borrowed:

You do and don’t belong to me.

For Mercy

Darling don’t go,

Don’t leave me out here on my own.

I’m in the space between the spaces

And it ain’t what I was made for.

You’d think by now I should know.

As if it made me more a man if I could stand

The wasted gamble of our days.

They say places to hunt, 

Just like places to hide,

Are getting harder to keep

And still harder to find,

So don’t leave me.

I’m roaring for mercy.

Or is it lenience?

Or to bury the moments we won’t be the hosts for,

And carve our names into stone,

And then leave me believing the faith I won’t find on the road?

Now if I said I’d be the one

To hold you in my arms,

And that I never saw the day

Where you would leave me behind

I’d be lying.

Maybe we’ve made this a brook too broad for leaping.

Or maybe I’ve made myself too difficult to believe in.

Or maybe love has her ways,

Love has her terrible ways.

Canary

I thought I knew the wind, I listened in,

The smoke and clay, they wore me thin.

We’re spinning on a syllable

That has the gall to bring the whole world down.

We tape it up and wear it out,

We let the blood soak through our callous skin.

Take all of my lies and try to tie the knots

That I can do without.

When I was a bird

I could see where the moon had turned.

The sky was alive,

And this wire of mine burned.

Been lying with these words the whole damn time.

When did my tongue begin to slow me?

Let me take my time while keeping pace.

We break it down, the right and wrong,

The thorns and roots I grew before I knew.

Witness all these pretty colors

Learning to behave, this ain’t no race.

Hear me through this dying day

And hold the words that were not meant for you.

Been sleeping with the truth the whole damn time.

I would kill for a night in the pines

Or a dawn at sea.

I would kill for a night in the pines

Or a dawn at sea. 

I would kill for a night in the pines

Or a dawn at sea.

Been sleeping next to you the whole damn time.

La Mer Peu Profonde

[instrumental]

Anybody Else

Oh, we get lost

In the morning’s caves.

Down in the darkness

Where no one would find us for days.

She keeps me burning,

Keeps me close to her flame.

And I’m cursing the years

When my ears were untrained in her name.

I never wanted anybody else.

No, I never wanted anybody else.

And whenever she leaves me behind,

Think I’m a fool not to be by her side.

I never wanted anybody else.

Oh, my baby’s a heartbreaker.

Yeah, she’s a long night.

And I am the one-woman man

Who can’t stand fighting shy of her light.

Oh, she keeps me moving on,

Makes me feel alright. 

And all of my wandering roads,

They just carry me home to her side.

Every note I play

Doesn’t sound the same

When she’s not listening,

And I am missing her.

Pocket of Gold

She said a war ain’t a war before both sides bleed.

I got arms like a rope and a belly like an old oak tree.

I was looking for a dry home that I could outgrow

Once the bed don’t fit no more.

I said, my lover is a long night, hurry if you’re running with me.

And if the favor of her heart was caution,

Then her eyes never pinned it to me.

If every dollar I owned was all that she stole,

I could have sold my heart for a pocket of gold.

I could have been a well-kept man, 

But it isn’t so.

I need an untamed woman with a sharp tongue.

Go on, son, go and try to get you one.

One that says oh, you should know,

I’ll haunt you like a goddamn ghost.

I said, I never knew the moral but I guess that’s how the story goes.

My love has never met a mirror at the hour that I needed it most. 

Spent all this time choking truth from lies, when all the while 

It’s hiding in a six foot hole.

I could have been a well-kept man,

But it isn’t so.

Trouble

Trouble, you’ve found me again.

I struggle some to stay away

But I fit so nicely in your hand.

Fight through the light,

There’s no time to sharpen claws

Or shake my wings in skittish flight.

Trouble takes a doe on doubtful legs,

Says, have the moon and have the sun,

But sip politely from the dregs.

Although you’ll use my feathers for a bed,

I’d rather sleep in hell than beckon boring death.

I’m terrified of my heart,

It’s hunger for whatever it may want,

The way it stops and starts.

I might saunter into war,

Trouble doesn’t keep a civil score.

You use but words to speak to me,

And for you I am pellucid as a shallow sea.

Trouble, I will run with you again,

I’ll take the moon, I’ll take the sun,

I’ll wade forever in the dregs.

I’ll sail my beating heart away from shore.

Shall it not return, I’ll know that trouble stole the oars.

Bees

There’s a voice that pulls me stumbling through a symphony,

And the less of it I need, the more I get.

Until I’m swept up by the shape of all the centuries

That can echo in the chambers of my chest.

I think she fears I’ll be a servant to my history,

Or worse, a slave to someone else’s misplaced doubts.

So I try too hard to kill what’s out to kill me,

Til I’m blind and hiding in the lion’s mouth.

The words she aches to hear pour through my canyon,

And they’re singing in the caverns of my limbs.

And though I do my best to try to understand them,

They only follow me like vultures in the end.

I once read that I should write something worth reading,

Or I should do something worth writing about,

But as my years, they buzz like bees upon the ceiling,

I start to pour a little more than I’m allowed.

I said our hearts know deeper seasons than our memories,

And she said this harvest might sustain us for a year.

And of all the thousand ways the world could tempt me,

I never met a better fighter than her fear. 

So as I try to breathe the air that she is breathing

And we dance a lightless dance upon my floor,

I am burning to tell her she’s all I’m needing,

But I’m drowned out by all the noise outside the door.

Carried by the current of the morning,

Miles below the surface of the dawn,

This is not the place that I was born in, 

But that doesn’t mean it’s not the place where I belong.

Blood Run Red

When my husband left me, he fled in the dead of night.

Stars went black; empty bed, he stole clean out of sight.

Wrote me a letter, said she’d done him better than I’d ever been.

I got the gun and the silver bullet, cast off my diamond ring.

Spilled me out into the street, saw her golden smile.

Used me up, left me for dead, so I let my heart grow wild.

Bones went dark; shot was sharp, black crow shook her wing.

I got the gun and the silver bullet, cast off my diamond ring.

Oh, you got me running.

Blood run red on a stone of grey, my soul steeped in sin,

But I won’t forget the day, like a jailbird I will sing:

I got the gun and the silver bullet,

I got the gun and the silver bullet,

I got the gun and the silver bullet, 

Cast off my diamond ring.

Noble Rot

I sailed my heart out to the sea

And that rotten bastard spit it out at me.

I was less than graceful, I was not kind,

I’d be out watching other lovers lose their spines.

I said, now baby, won’t you leave me be?

Give me back my freedom; I’ll leave you the revelry,

I was more than waspish, I spoke out of turn.

What I do with all my bridges, that ain’t none of your concern.

It was in my head, but I did not say

That I could not dare to face the morning. 

My voice was guilty and I knew it best.

I stayed for months where doubt is now the sole remaining guest.

I was on my way back home.

Bartering

Burning the evening’s last fuel on my own.

Head like a waltz and my heart like a stone.

You said we’d both find a way to get by,

But I’m not quite sure where your allegiances lie.

Was it always part of a plan?

Did you think I’d turn into a better man?

Did you lift me up just to watch me come back down?

I’m behind, but I’m making up ground.

Lazy and lovestruck, I’m foolish and old,

Bartering dreams for the feelings I’ve sold.

Now that all of our fire is gone,

There is liquor and love, not enough of each one.

Storms

I said, I am no evil man, and then I paused as if convinced of what that meant.

I braced myself and faced my doubts,

Not surprised but unprepared for such an arduous descent,

And if I ever knew I loved you, it was then.

I said, don’t you hide your eyes from me,

I will wreck your guesswork worries one by one,

And when they’re buried in some deep, dark sea,

You’ll be mine, and so my mind it spun and spun.

But it was over by the time it had begun.

You said, I will not chase these storms,

While our tongues gave all our wickedness away.

I said, ours will be no hollow home.

Though made of stone, these walls alone won’t keep you safe.

With each downpour we discover what it takes.

I said, how can I carry on? 

All these waves don’t make a sailor out of me.

You’ll set out with the morning sun,

I’m alone, and slow to gather up my leaves.

Up in arms, if just to guard our thinning dreams.

Carolina, Carolina,

Dare I save these words for you?

I don’t speak unless I mean to.

Someone told me all your sails were raised,

So I stood upon the mooring of the bay,

Both eyes closed in hopes your colors haven’t changed.

Both eyes closed in hopes your colors haven’t changed.

Sea Legs

A dark night at sea, and no one but me

To hold on to these old sails.

Who’s steering this ship?

Oh, and where’s the rest of it?

Still homesick for a foreign harbor.

A home on the range, and a big fire to light the way,

These are no cravings of a seafarer.

So do what you will with this

And my brick of a kiss on your lips,

And you’ll be humming my last words.

Take what you need,

And if risk leads to ruin, my heart would forgive me.

Now my days all look the same, 

And I’ve known these wolves by name,

Cause my own devils are all heartless lovers.

And these sea legs tend to ache

Whenever I stay in the same place,

So It might be good of me to go.

If I go, would you take what you need?

And if risk leads to ruin, my heart would forgive me.

I should know by now

How to close my mouth,

How to keep my words from pouring out.

Meridian

I stood on the colder side of October,

If I said I was sober, I’d be a liar.

The devil come easy, and the lord don’t believe me,

Have I missed my chance to dance around that fire?

Color me hopeful, and drive me back homeward,

I will not beg to be your fearless man.

And for all of its beauty when hearts are in bloom,

Well, love still sees through me, and hangs me to die.

I let your brightness cover all my dark,

So could my loneliness be my own fault?

Quiet son, let nature do her part,

As if you ever knew your own damn heart.

Well, I hope you have found me

Roped to your boundaries.

Lover, come haunt me or leave me alone.