Lyrics of the Day

All the other girls here are stars - you are the northern lights.
They try to shine in through your curtains - you're too close and too bright.
They try and they try but everything that they do is the ghost of a trace of a pale imitation of you...

I'll be the one to drive you back home Kathleen

This party was made with the night air and the chance that a smile will wind its way from your face to one of the boys in your line.
You act like you're hip to their tricks and you're strong but a virgin Wurlitzer heart never once had a song...
I'll be the one to drive you back home Kathleen

And I'll have you back by break of day
I'm going your way anyway.
And if you'd like to come along, I'll be yours for a song

I know you are waiting and I know that it is not for me.
But I'm here and I'm ready and I've saved you the passenger seat.
I won't be your last dance just your last goodnight.
Every heart is a package tangled up in knots someone else tied.
I'll be the one to drive you back home Kathleen

So crawl up your trellis and quietly back into your room, and I'll coast down the length of your drive by the light of the moon.
And the next time I see you - a new kind of hello
Both our hearts have a secret only both of us know...

'Bout the night that I drove you back home Kathleen

Josh Ritter: Kathleen

Concert Review: Josh Ritter

I've gone to see Josh Ritter twice now in concert. And I think everyone should go see him given the chance.

They don't play him on any radio stations that I know of. Sometimes they'll play his songs in Starbucks, but outside of that I haven't ever heard his music.

His new album!

What prompted me to listen to his songs? I don't know what started it. Mostly what I love about his music is that he's a poet. He's a writer that can sing and play guitar.

His lyrics are magical and tell a story. His live concerts are those stories magnified and amplified by 100%.

I've been to a fair amount of concerts where the songs sound identical to the ones on the album. You can sing the notes as you know them and you can't go wrong. Not so at a Josh Ritter show. He'll speed things up. He'll slow things down. He'll turn off all the lights and play with no amps, no drums, not even the mic is turned on.

Then he'll come out with trumpets and a cello and blow your socks off. Plus he is adorable. He cannot stop smiling.

That smile...

He appreciates a crowd, and shows it. I'm sick of jaded rock stars that never say thank you, that flip off the crowd, that don't smile.

Josh has a smiling disorder. He cannot stop jumping, giggling, laughing, smiling, playing, writing. I hope he never stops.

The show was (once again) amazing. I am grateful that his shows never cost too much money (the standard $60 for a concert is pricey when you see 4-5 shows a year). Hopefully whenever his next album comes out I'll be loaded and able to buy tickets for myself and my friends!

Lyrics of the Day

Supposedly it was a wise wise man who said it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, never to have loved.
How many times does the truth that you take to be true is just truth falling apart at the same speed as you... Until it all comes away in a million degrees and you’re just a few pieces of falling debris.

And she’s hopeful. Hopeful. For me.
I’m coming out of the dark clouds.

She went away and she packed all her loving.
I could not believe it how little there was.
I stood in the cold kitchen with nothing to say... Who’d keep the whole world spinning when she went away?

She kept telling me about the good things I deserve, that I wanted somebody I’d mistaken for her.
But one look in my eyes and she’d know she was wrong so she wouldn’t look back at me until she was gone.

How many times did you give all your love and find out it was so far from far from enough?
I followed her out into the street in the rain and the whole world stopped spinning and just went up in flames.

And she’s hopeful. Hopeful. For me.
I’m coming out of the dark clouds.
She’s hopeful. Hopeful, for me.
She says it to me often

The sunlight corroded and the days started to fail.
The rocks in the road sharpened shadows to nails.
The fencepost were empty and so were the trees.
Had the bluebird of use on its last tune for me.

I’ve seen her around now with someone new I don’t know,
She likes greed-eyed boys who are haloed in hope... But I know the look in his eyes and I know all the old signs.
Just a couple more curves before his own road unwinds.

These days I’m feeling better about the man that I am.
There’s some things I can change and there’s others I can’t.
I met someone new now I know I deserve, I never met someone who loves the world more than her.

She has been through her own share of hard times as well, and she has learned how to tear out the heaven from hell.
Most nights I’m alright still all rocks roll down hill... but she says I’ll get better, she knows that I will.

And she’s hopeful. Hopeful, for me.
I’m coming out of the dark clouds.
She’s hopeful. Hopeful, for me.
Coming out of the dark clouds, Coming out of the dark clouds .

The world is as the world is.
Everybody’s gonna hurt like hell some times.
The world is as the world is.
Everybody’s gonna hurt like hell some times some times.

Josh Ritter: Hopeful

Lyrics of the Day

Peter said to Paul you know all those words we wrote?
Are just the rules of the game and the rules are the first to go.
But now talking to God is Laurel begging Hardy for a gun... I got a girl in the war, man I wonder what it is we done...

Paul said to Peter you got to rock yourself a little harder, pretend the dove from above is a dragon and your feet are on fire.
But I got a girl in the war Paul, the only thing I know to do is turn up the music and pray that she makes it through.

Because the keys to the kingdom got locked inside the kingdom and the angels fly around in there but we can't see them.
I got a girl in the war Paul I know that they can hear me yell...
If they can't find a way to help her they can go to hell
If they can't find a way to help her they can go to hell

Paul said to Peter you got to rock yourself a little harder, pretend the dove from above is a dragon and your feet are on fire.
But I got a girl in the war Paul her eyes are like champagne...
They sparkle bubble over and in the morning all you got is rain
They sparkle bubble over and in the morning all you got is rain
They sparkle bubble over and in the morning all you got is rain

Josh Ritter: Girl in the War

Lyrics of the Day

Well there's one thing Mama, I think you should know...
It is not love that makes the flowers grow,
But a complex electron transfer process known as photosynthesis when chlorophyll reacts with the light of day.
But since you're gone, the light has gone away.

Oh there's one more thing Mama, I think that you'll find
It is not love that makes the stars shine.
But the spontaneous combustion of super-heated and super-condensed gasses in the process known as fusion that creates new elements when the time is right...
Since you're gone, stars don't shine so bright.

Oh there's another thing Mama, I think I should confide...
It is not love that'll turn the tide
But the net difference in the gravitational pull between the Earth and the Moon as it is acted out upon the waves,
But since you're gone, I feel washed away.

I could have been a mathematician, studied rockets for a living.
Would've worked out better in the end.
But to get more specific I'd break every law of physics to bring you back to me again

Well there's one more thing, I'll tell you if I can...
It is not love, that makes a non-stick frying pan
But a top-secret, trademarked, conglomerated, most likely carcinogenic, polyurethane compound spread in a micro-thin substance, over a negatively charged layer of aluminum, copper, iron, lead, VHS, FYI, apple pie, FBI, and some other elements too....

Since you're gone, I wish I'd stuck to you

Josh Ritter: Stuck to You

Lyrics of the Day

This is it my dear old friend, our paths it seems are at an end. For now.
Though in time we floated free, we're pulled by separate gravities to ground.

But it's clear in the way we part (with our hearts together but our hands apart)
and it seems so hard to begin...
Best friends we'll always be, though your road don't follow me.
I know our paths will cross again.

Time has turned her face from me and spin spirals fancy free, I flew.
With nothing but the dawn to see and now I've got my memories of you.

Well the road is windy and the road is hard, and there's no telling just how far,
or how many letters I might send.
One day you'll walk with me against all probability.
I know our paths will cross again.

Time is like this fast freight train you gotta ride, you can't remain behind.
And all your friends are on separate tracks and some of them they won't look back to find.

The one place we all have known.
The one place we can call a home.
The place where each of us began.
Sure as that day rolls around, when the road back home is finally found, I know our paths will cross again.

Now my home is in a far off land, where love and time have made their stand against me.
And that's probably where I'm going to stay, it's probably where they'll marry me someday.

But after all is come and gone, and after every songs' been sung, there comes a thought I won't defend.
Sure stones are left unturned and on the streets where home fires burn,
I know our paths will cross again...

Josh Ritter: Paths will Cross