Indigo Girls Album

Words and Music: Amy Ray

I come to you with strange fire, I make an offering of love
The incense of my soul is burned by the fire in my blood
I come with a softer answer to the questions that lie in your path
I want to harbor you from the anger find a refuge from the wrath

This is a message, a message of love
Love that moves from the inside out
Love that never grows tired
I come to you with strange fire

Mercenaries of the shrine, now who are you to speak for God
With haughty eyes and lying tongues and hands that shed innocent blood
Now who delivered you to power to interpret cavalry
You gambled away our freedom to gain your own authority

Find another state of mind
Reach out grab hold
Strange fire burns with the motion of love

When you learn to love yourself, you will dissolve all the stones that are cast
You will learn to burn the icing sky, to melt the waxen mask
To have to hold of true relief this is the peace that's gonna take you higher
I come to you with my offering, I bring you strange fire

This is a message, a message of love
Love that moves from the inside out
Love that never grows tired
I come to you with strange fire

I come to you with strange fire

Words and Music: Emily Saliers

I'm trying to tell you something bout my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
And the best thing you've ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously
It's only life after all

Now darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it
I'm crawling on your shores

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains,
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
There's more than one answer to these questions pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine

I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin, and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry, or see a b-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind
I got my paper and I was free

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains,
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
There's more than one answer to these questions pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine

*whistle*

I stopped by the bar at 3 am
To seek solace in a bottle, or possibly a friend
And I woke up with a headache like my head against a board
Twice as cloudy as I'd been the night before
I went in seeking clarity

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountain, I looked to the children, I drank
from the fountain
We go to the doctor, we go to the mountains, we look to the children, we drink
from the fountains
We go to the bible, we go through the workout, we read up on revival, we stand
up for the lookout
There's more than one answer to these questions pointing me in a crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine

Words and Music: Amy Ray

Pain from pearls, hey little girl
How much have you grown?
Pain from pearls, hey little girl
Flowers for the ones you've known

Are you on fire from the years
What would you give for your kid fears?

Secret staircase, running high
You had a hiding place
Secret staircase, running low
They all know now you're inside

Are you on fire from the years
What would you give for your kid fears?

Skipping stones, we know the price now
And any sin will do
How much further if you can spin
How much further if you are smooth?

Are you on fire (Are you on fire)
From the years (From the years)
What would you give for your kid fears

What would replace the rent with the stars above
Replace the need with the love
Replace the anger with the tide
Replace the ones the ones the ones that you love

Are you on fire from the years
What would you give for your kid fears
Hey kids
Hold on

Words and Music: Emily Saliers

Thought I knew my mind like the back of my hand
The gold and the rainbow and nothing panned out as I planned
They say only milk and honey's gonna make your soul satisfied
I better learn how to swim cause the crossing is chilly and wide

Twisted guardrails on the highway broken glass on the cement
The ghost of someone's tragedy how recklessly my time has been spent
And they say that it's never too late but you don't, you don't get any younger
I better learn how to starve the emptiness and feed the hunger

Up on the watershed standing at the fork in the road
You can stand there and agonize till your agony's your heaviest load
You'll never fly as the crow flies get used to a country mile
When you're learning to face the path at your pace every choice is worth your
while

And there's always retrospect to light a clearer path
Every five years or so I look back on my life and I have a good laugh
You start at the top, go full circle round catch a breeze take a spin
But ending up where I started again makes me want to stand still

Up on the watershed standing at the fork in the road
You can stand there and agonize till your agony's your heaviest load
You'll never fly as the crow flies get used to a country mile
When you're learning to face the path at your pace every choice is worth your
while

Stepping on a crack breaking up and looking back
Every tree limb overhead just seems to sit anyway 
Till every step you take becomes a twist of fate

Up on the watershed standing at the fork in the road
You can stand there and agonize till your agony's your heaviest load
You'll never fly as the crow flies so get used to a country mile
When you're learning to face the path at your pace every choice is worth your
while

Up on the watershed standing at the fork in the road
You can stand there and agonize till your agony's your heaviest load
You'll never fly as the crow flies so get used to a country mile
When you're learning to face the path at your pace every choice is worth your
while

Words and Music: Amy Ray
(Dedicated to the memory of a great poet, Frank Stanford)

Three hits to the heart son and it's poetry in motion
One could send you down the river three's a strange way to be delivered
Would you trade your words for freedom that's a barter for a blind man
Three hits to the heart son and it's poetry in motion

Are you leveed like a treasure only words can help me find you
And this world's a fickle measure I will painfully remind you
From a wise man to your red hand you lay covered in our best sins
Three hits to the heart son and it's poetry in motion

Well I dream you constant stranger with your best bloods and your anger
You say mother do you claim me my beloved do you blame me
Well the first two might release you but the last one sings in me son
Three hits to the heart son and it's poetry in motion

Three hits to the heart son and the last one sings in me

Words and Music: Emily Saliers

Galileo's head was on the block 
The crime was looking up the truth
And as the bombshells of my daily fears explode 
I try to trace them to my youth

And then you had to bring up reincarnation 
Over a couple of beers the other night
And now I'm serving time for mistakes made by another
In another lifetime

How long till my soul gets it right 
Can any human being ever reach that kind of light
I call on the resting soul of Galileo 
King of night vision
King of insight

I think about my fear of motion
Which I never could explain
Some other fool across the ocean years ago 
Must have crashed his little airplane

How long till my soul gets it right 
Can any human being ever reach that kind of light 
I call on the resting soul of Galileo 
King of night vision 
King of insight

I'm not making a joke you know me I take everything so seriously
If we wait for the time till all souls get it right
Then at least I know there'll be no nuclear annihalation in my lifetime
I'm still not right

I offer thanks to those before me that's all I've got to say
Cause maybe you squandered big bucks in your lifetime
Now I have to pay
But then again it feels like some sort of inspiration
To let the next life off the hook
Or she'll say 
Look what I had to overcome from my last life
I think I'll write a book

How long till my soul gets it right (till my soul gets it right)
Can any human being ever reach the highest light
Except for Galileo (resting soul)
Resting soul (of Galileo)
King of night vision
King of insight

How long? (till my soul gets it right) (till we reach the highest light)
How long? (till my soul gets it right) (till we reach the hightest light)
How long?

Words and Music: Emily Saliers

There's a letter on the desktop that I dug out of a drawer
The last truce we ever came to from our adolescent war
And I start to feel the fever of the warm air through the screen
You come regular like seasons shadowing my dreams

The Mississippi's mighty, but it starts in Minnesota
At a place where you can walk across with five steps down
And that's just how you started like a pinprick to my heart
But at this point you rush right through me and I start to drown

There's not enough room in this world for my pain
Signals crossed and love gets lost and time passed makes it plain
Of all my demon spirits I need you the most
I'm in love with your ghost
I'm in love with your ghost

Dark and dangerous like a secret it gets whispered in a hush (don't tell a soul)
And when I wake the things I dreamt about you last night make me blush (don't
tell a soul)
When you kiss me like a lover and you sting me like a viper
I go follow to the river play your memory like the piper

And I feel it like a sickness how this love is killing me
But I would walk into the fingers of your fire willingly
Dance the edge of sanity I've never been this close
In love with your ghost
oooooh-oooooooh-ooooooh-oooooooooh
oooooh-oooooooh-ooooooh-oooooooooh

Unknowing captor you'll never know how much you
Pierce my spirit but I can't touch you
Can you hear it a cry to be free
Oh I'm forever under lock and key
As you pass through me

Now I see your face before me I would launch a thousand ships
To bring your heart back to my island as the sand beneath me slips
I burn up in your presence and I know now how it feels
To be weakened like Achilles with you always at my heels

This bitter pill to swallow is the silence that I keep
It poisons me I can't swim free the river is too deep
Though I'm baptized by your touch I am no worse at most
In love with your ghost 

Amy: 
In love with your ghost
In love with your ghost
Emily:
You are shadowing my dreams
oooooh-oooooooh-ooooooh-oooooooooh

Words and Music: Amy Ray

I had guards like watchdogs, dogs in a manger 
I could feel the protection, possession and anger
I drove out of there with no one behind me
Feeling funny and free

All you pretty pretenders, negligent vendors
Aren't you precious inside?
I have no need for anger with intimate strangers
I got nothing to hide

I laughed as I said it this is my situation
It's not pictures or privilege it's just self-preservation
I don't want you to feel any obligation
Feels so funny to be free

All you pretty pretenders, negligent vendors
Aren't you precious inside
I have no need for anger with intimate strangers
I got nothing to hide

Amy:
I remember you
When we were shiny and new now you guard your faith
Temper your speed
It feels so funny to be free
Emily:
We act empty and innocent but we are fueled by distortions
Of lives led in discontent trading misfortunes
Cause faith is one thing that is hard to deliver
It feels so funny to be free

All you pretty pretenders, negligent vendors
Aren't you precious inside
I have no need for anger with intimate strangers
I got nothing to hide
I got nothing to hide

All of us, all of us, all of us, all of us
Pretty pretenders, negligent vendors
Aren't we precious inside
I have no need for anger with intimate strangers
I got nothing to hide
I got nothing to hide

I had guards like watchdogs, dogs in a manger
(I remember you)

Words and Music: Emily Saliers

Now the parking lot is empty
Everyone's gone someplace
I pick you up and in the trunk I've packed
A cooler and a two-day suitcase
Cause there's a place we like to drive 
Way out in the country
Five miles out of the city limit we're singing
And your hand's upon my knee

So we're okay, we're fine
Baby I'm here to stop your crying 
Chase all the ghosts from your head
I'm stronger than the monster beneath your bed
Smarter than the tricks played on your heart
We'll look at them together then we'll take them apart
Adding up the total of a love that's true
Multiply life by the power of two

You know the things I'm afraid of
I'm not afraid to tell
And if we ever leave a legacy
It's that we loved each other well
Cause I've seen the shadows of so many people
Trying on the treasures of youth
But a road that's fancy and fast ends in a fatal crash
And I'm glad we got off to tell you the truth

Cause we're okay, we're fine
Baby I'm here to stop your crying 
Chase all the ghosts from your head
I'm stronger than the monster beneath your bed
Smarter than the tricks played on your heart
We'll look at them together then we'll take them apart
Adding up the total of a love that's true
Multiply life by the power of two

Emily:
All the shiny little trinkets of temptation
Something new instead of something old
All you gotta do is scratch beneath the surface
And it's fool's gold
Fool's gold
Fool's gold
Amy:
Make new friends but
Keep the old
But remember
What is gold
What is gold
What is gold

Now we're talking bout a difficult thing 
And your eyes are getting wet
I tookus for better and I took us for worse
Now don't you ever forget
Now the steel bars between me and a promise
Suddenly bend with ease
And the closer I'm bound in love to you
The closer I am to free

So we're okay, we're fine
Baby I'm here to stop your crying
Chase all the ghosts from your head
I'm stronger than a monster beneath your bed
I'm smarter than the tricks played on your heart
We'll look at them together then we'll take them apart
Adding up the totals of a love that's true
Multiply life by the power of two

Words and Music: Emily Saliers

I sit two stories above the street
It's awful quiet here since love fell asleep
There's life down below me though the kids are walking home from school

So long ago when we were taught 
That for whatever kind of puzzle you got
You just stick the right formula in a solution for every fool

I remember the time when I came so close to you
Sent me skipping my class and running from school
And I bought you that ring cause I never was cool

What makes me think I can start clean-slated?
The hardest to learn was the least complicated

So I just sit up in the house and resist
And not be seen until I cease to exist
A kind of conscientious objection a kind of dodging the draft

Boy and girl are holding hands in the street
And I don't want to but I'll think you just wait
It's more than just eye to eye learn things I could never apply

I remember the time I came so close with you 
I let everything go it seemed the only truth
And I bought you that ring it seemed the thing to do

What makes me think I can start clean-slated?
The hardest to learn was the least complicated
What makes me think I can start clean-slated?
The hardest to learn was the least complicated

Oh I'm just a mirror of a mirror of myself
All the things I do
And the next time I fall I'm going to have to recall
It isn't love it's only something new

I sit two stories above the street
It's awful quiet here since love fell asleep
There's life down below me though the kids are walking home from school

I remember the time I came so close to you
Sent me skipping my class and running from school
And I bought you that ring cause I never was cool

What makes me think I can start clean-slated?
The hardest to learn was the least complicated
What makes me think I can start clean-slated?
The hardest to learn was the least complicated

Na na na na na na na (least complicated)
Na na na na na na na (least complicated)
Na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na

Words and Music: Amy Ray

My friends they wash the windows they shine in the sun
They tell me wake up early in the morning sometimes see what a beautiful job
we've done
I said, "let's put on some tunes, sing along, Doolittle all day"
Go down to the riverside take off our shoes and wash these sins away

The river said, "la la la shame on you"
River said, "la la la" it said "shame on you"

I go down to Chicano City Park cause it makes me feel so fine
And when the weeds go down you can see up close in the dead of the wintertime
But when the summer comes everything's in bloom and you wouldn't know it's there
And the white folks like to pretend it's not but they're music's in the air

You can hear 'em singing la la la shame on you
And you can feel 'em dancing la la la shame on you

My friend Tanner she says, "y'know me and Jesus we're of the same heart
The only thing that keeps us distant is that I keep fuckin' up"
Come on down to Chicano City Park and wash your blues away
And when the beautiful ladies walk right by y'know I never know what to say to
them

And they say ooooh la la la la la la la la la shame on you
And they'll be dancing la la la they say shame on you
Shame on you

Let's go roadblock tripping in the middle of the night up in Gainesville town
There'll be blue lights flashing down the long dirt road when they ask me to
step out
They say, "we're looking for illegal immigrants can we check your car?"
I said, "it's funny I think we were on the same boat back in 1694"

And I said ooooh la la la la la la la la shame on you
and they'll be dancing la la la they say shame on you
And I said ooooh la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
La la la la la la i said shame on you
And I said, I said, shame on you
They'll be dancing la la la they said shame on you
Shame on you

Roadblock trippin' in the middle of the night in Gainesville town
(Blue lights flashing down the long dirt road)

Words and Music: Emily Saliers

I'm gonna clear my head
I'm gonna drink that sun

The saddest sight my eyes can see
Is that big ball of orange sinking slyly down the trees
Sitting in a broken circle while you rest upon my knee
This perfect moment will soon be leaving me

Suzanne calls from Boston the coffee's hot the corn is high
And that same sun that warms your heart will suck that good earth dry
With everything its opposite enough to keep you cryin'
Or keep this ol' world spinning with a twinkle in its eye

Get out the map, get out the map and lay your finger anywhere down
We'll leave the figurin' to those we pass on the way out of town
Don't drink the water there seems to be something ailing everyone
I'm gonna clear my head
I'm gonna drink that sun
I'm gonna love you good and strong while our love is good and young

Joni left for South Africa a few years ago
And then Beth she took a job all the way over on the west coast
And me I'm still trying to live half a life on the road
Seems I'm heavier by the year (heavier by the year) and heavier by the load
(heavier by the load)

Why do we hurtle ourselves through every inch of time and space
I must say around some corner I can sense a resting place
With every lesson learned a line upon your beautiful face
We'll amuse ourselves one day with these memories we'll trace

Get out the map, get out the map and lay your finger anywhere down
We'll leave the figurin' to those who pass on the way out of town
Don't drink the water there seems to be something ailing everyone
I'm gonna clear my head (I'm gonna clear my head)
I'm gonna drink that sun (I'm gonna drink that sun)
I'm gonna love you good and strong while our love is good and young
I'm gonna clear my head
I'm gonna drink that sun
I'm gonna love you good and strong while our love is good and young

Words and Music: Amy Ray
Note: This song is a reincarnation of Problem Child

Through the dustbowl through the debt
Grandma was a suffragette
Blacklisted for her publication
Blacklisted for my generation
Go, go, go

Raise your hands, raise your hands high
Don't take a seat don't stand aside
This time don't assume anything
Just go, go, go

So feed the fire and fan the flame
I know the kids can stand the rain
I know the kids are still upsetters
Cause rock is cool but the struggle is better
I said go, go, go

Raise your hands, raise your hands high
Don't take a seat don't stand aside
This time don't assume anything
This time don't assume anything
I said go, go, go

The truth is I was afraid . . .
. . .I felt inferior. . .
. . .I felt I excelled in competing with others
And I knew instantly that these people
Were not competing at all, that they were acting in a
Strange, powerful trance of movement together.
And I was filled with longing to act
With them and with the fear that I could not.

Did they tell you it was set in stone
And that you would end up alone
Use your years to psych you out
You're too old to care, they're too young to count
Did they tell you you would come undone
If you tried to touch the sun
Undermine the underground
You're too old to care they're too young to count
I said go, go, go

Words and music: Emily Saliers

Trouble came around here
Here in the South we fix something to eat
Steam risin' up off the greenery and
We welcome the strangers we meet
Alien sick growing in these walls
Like moss in a crack that time made
I brush a guy in the airport whistling it's a small world after all
And the prices are higher but the kid's still selling lemonade

(Chorus):
Get to the point of it
Get to the sense of it
I'm in a hurry to get through it

Hurricane flag falppin' in a bad storm
Same color as the spider underneath my nail that bit me in my dream
And who would take out the Dominican Republic
And send God's sweet children floating down a poison stream
Secret society of conference rooms
I pledge my allegiance to the dollar
And when the clergy take a vote all the gays will pay again
Cause there's more than one kind of criminal white collar

(Chorus)

One day the war will stop
And we'll grow a peaceful crop
And a girl can get a wife
And we'll bring you back to life

Sacks of flour and rice or poker chips
Greasy palms of systems underhanding
And maybe we'll take a walk on Pluto
But be no closer to the understanding

(Chorus)

Words and music Amy Ray

I pulled out with the mountain laurel blooming
On a dirt road that is soon to be paved
Down to the site of my original establishment
And the west end family grave 

Cause one day moves into two
(One day moves into two)
And I'm losing
Everything except for you
(Everything except for you)
And I would sing you a song of devotion
(I would sing you a song of devotion)
Yeah that's what I should do
(That's what I should do) 

Blood runs thick and when it rains it pours down
(Blood runs thick)
On the family tree on the fields of war
(The family tree on the fields of war)
I spend my time being broken hearted and grieving bound
(I spend my time being broken hearted and grieving bound)
Yeah I haven't much need to look forward 

I just let a one day move into two 
(One day moves into two)
I'm losing
Everything except for you
(Everything except for you)
I would sing you a song of devotion
(I should sing you a song of devotion) 

Book of days
(Book of days)
The way things lay
(The way things lay)
That's just space and time
(That's just space and time)
I gave it up 
(I gave it up)
All for a love
(All for a love)
That won't be defined
(That won't be defined) 

I've had enough temporary acquisition 
Building fences for no gain
(Building fences for no gain)
Taking dead trees down before the winter freeze
(Taking dead trees down before the winter freeze)
I said let 'em rot and fall where they may 

Just let one day move into two
(One day moves into two) 
I'm losing
Everything except for you
(Everything except for you)
Ah yeah
I would sing you a song of devotion
(I would sing you a song of devotion)
That's what I should do
(I gotta let them fall where they may)
(Cause one day moves into two)
It's the book of days
(I'm losing)
It's the way things lay
(Everything except for you)
Now that's just space and time
(I)
(I would sing you a song)
I gave it up
(Of devotion) 
All for your love
(Yeah)
That's what I should do
(That's what I should do)
That's what I should do
(That's what I should do)
Yeah
That's what I should do
(That's what I should do)

Words and music Emily Saliers

Jet fuel and traffic lines
Pulling up to the delta signs
Distant shape of my hometown
Black stain where the wheels touch down 

I pick up the morning news
I pass the man who's never shined my shoes
Through security and to the train
That will take me to the airplane 

Count the miles on the highway
(Count the miles on the highway)
The sum of all my days
(The sum of all my days)
There's a postcard there's a call
(There's a call)
And there's a picture for your bedroom wall
(Bedroom wall) 

But do you ever wonder through and through
Who's that person standing next to you
(Who's that person standing next to you)
And after all the nights apart
Is there a home for a travelling heart

But if I weren't leaving you
(If I weren't leaving, if I weren't leaving you)
I don't know what I would do
(I would do)
But the more I go the less I know
Will the fire still burn on my return
Keep the path lit on the only road I know
Honey all I know to do is go 

A cup of coffee and my bags are packed
(Coffee and my bags are packed)
The same vow not to look back
(Same vow not to look back)
(If I weren't leaving)
Familiar emptiness inside
(Familiar emptiness inside)
As the distances grow wide
(If I weren't leaving) 

And though I vow to memorize
(I vow to memorize)
The last look in your loving eyes
(The last look in your loving eyes)
It's here dusk and there dawn
Oh it's like a curtain getting slowly drawn 

But if I weren't leaving you
(If I weren't leaving, if I weren't leaving you)
I don't know what I would do
(I would do)
But the more I go the less I know
Will the fire still burn on my return
Keep the path lit on the only road I know
Honey all I know to do is go 

But if I weren't leaving you
(If I weren't leaving, if I weren't leaving you)
I don't know what I would do
(I would do)
(Leaving you)
But the more I go it seems the less I know
(But the more I go the less I know)
Will the fire still burn on my return
(Will the fire still burn on my return)
Keep the path lit on the only road I know
(Keep the path lit on the only road I know)
Honey all I know to do is go