Iron & Wine Album

God, there is gold hidden deep in the ground
God, there's a hangman that wants to come around

How we rise when we're born
Like the ravens in the corn
On their wings, on our knees
Crawling careless from the sea

God, there are guns growing out of our bones
God, every road takes us farther from home

All these men that you've made
How we wither in the shade
Of your trees, on your wings
We are carried to the sea

God, give us love in the time that we have

She says wake up, it's no use pretending
I'll keep stealing, breathing her
Birds are leaving over autumn's ending
One of us will die inside these arms

Eyes wide open
Naked as we came
One will spread our
Ashes round the yard

She says if I leave before you darling
Don't you waste me in the ground
I lay smiling like our sleeping children
One of us will die inside these arms

Eyes wide open
Naked as we came
One will spread our
Ashes round the yard

Give me your hand
The dog in the garden row is covered in mud
And dragging your mother’s clothes
Cinder and smoke
The snake in the basement
Found the juniper shade
The farmhouse is burning down

Give me your hand
And take what you will tonight, I'll give it as fast
And high as the flame will rise
Cinder and smoke
Some whispers around the trees
The juniper bends
As if you were listening

Give me your hand
Your mother is drunk as all the firemen shake
A photo from father’s arms
Cinder and smoke
You’ll ask me to pray for rain
With ash in your mouth
You’ll ask it to burn again

Be this sunset soon forgotten
Your brothers left here shaved and crazy
We’ve learned to hide our bottles in the well
And what's worth keeping, sun still sinking
Down and down
Once again
Down and down
Gone again

Be this sunset, one for keeping
This june bug street sings low and lovely
Those band-aid children chased your dog away
She runs, returning, sun still sinking
Down and down
Once again
Down and down
Gone again

And when you give me your clothes
And when we’re lovers at last
Fresh air, perfume in your nose
There will be teeth in the grass

And when you give me your house
When we’re all brothers at last
There will be food in our mouths
There will be teeth in the grass

And when there’s nothing to want
When we’re all brilliant and fast
When all tomorrow's are gone
There will be teeth in the grass

Love is a dress that you made long
To hide your knees
Love to say this to your face
I'll love you only
For your days and excitement
What will you keep for to wear?
Someday drawing you different
May I be weaving in your hair?

Love and some verses you hear
Say what you can say
Love to say this in your ear
I'll love you that way
From your changing contentments
What will you choose for to share?
Someday drawing you different,
May I be weaved in your hair?

Did the wine make her dream
Of the far, distant spring?
Or a bed full of hens?
Or the ghost of a friend?

All the while that she wept,
She'd a gun by her bed
And the letter he wrote
From a dry, foundered boat

And the train track will take
All the wounded ones home
And I'll be alone.
Fare thee well, Sara Jones.

Now we lie on the floor
While the radio war
Finds its way through the air
Of the dead market square

And the beast, never seen
Licks its red talons clean.
Sara curses the cold,
"No more snow, no more snow,

No more snow."

Will you say when I'm gone away
"My lover came to me and we'd lay
In rooms unfamiliar but until now"

Will you say to them when I'm gone away
"I loved your son for his sturdy arms
We both learned to cradle then live without"

Will you say when I'm gone away
"Your father's body was judgement day
We both dove and rose to the riverside"

Will you say to me when I'm gone
"Your face has faded but lingers on
Because light strikes a deal with each coming night"

When the men take me to the devil tree
I will be free and shining like before
Papa dont tell me what I should've done
She's the one who begged me
"Take me home"

When the wind wraps me like the reaper's hand
I will swing free until they cut me down
Papa dont tell me what I could've done
She's the one who begged me
"Take me home"

When the sea takes me like my mother's arms
I will breathe free as any word of God
Papa dont tell me what you would've done
She's the one who begged me
"Take me home"

Some days her shape in the doorway
Will speak to me
A bird’s wing on the window
Sometimes I’ll hear when she’s sleeping
Her fever dream
A language on her face

I want your flowers like babies want God’s love
Or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come

Some days, like rain on the doorstep
She’ll cover me
With grace in all she offers
Sometimes I'd like just to ask her
What honest words
She can’t afford to say, like

I want your flowers like babies want God’s love
Or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come

Papa died smiling
Wide as the ring of a bell
Gone all star white
Small as a wishing well

And Sodom, south Georgia
Woke like a tree full of bees
Buried in Christmas bows
And a blanket of weeds

Papa died Sunday and I understood
All dead white boys say, "God is good"
White tongues hang out, "God is good"

Papa died while my girl
Lady Edith was born
Both heads fell like
Eyes on a crack in the door

And Sodom, south Georgia
Slept on an acre of bones
Slept through Christmas
Slept like a bucket of snow

Papa died Sunday and I understood
All dead white boys say, "God is good"
White tongues hang out, "God is good"

There are times that walk from you
Like some passing afternoon
Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon
And she chose a yard to burn
But the ground remembers her
Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms

There are things that drift away
Like our endless numbered days
Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made
And she's chosen to believe
In the hymns her mother sings
Sunday pulls it's children from their piles of fallen leaves

There are sailing ships that pass
All our bodies in the grass
Springtime calls her children until she lets them go at last
And she's chosen where to be
Though she's lost her wedding ring
Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds

There are things we can't recall
Blind as night that finds us all
Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls
But my hands remember hers
Rolling around the shaded ferns
Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned

There are names across the sea
Only now I do believe
Sometimes, with the window closed, she'll sit and think of me
But she'll mend his tattered clothes
And they'll kiss as if they know
A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone

Black dog bit through the keeper’s chain
Small and angry when the Devil came
Sold my soul like a pocket knife
There was no moon, there’ll be no milk as sweet

Tomcat curled on a rabbit cage
Brittle fingers in the potter’s clay
Sold my soul and I laid her down
There was no moon, there’ll be no milk as sweet

Blue bird laughs on a fallen tree
Sunset burns on a quiet sea
Sold my soul and they ran me down
There was no moon, there’ll be no milk as sweet

Midnight, and her eyes
Hide like kittens, new and wet
Mine are sinning hands
On her lying on my bed

The river still may rise
Wild and water take us both
Mine are sinning hands
Take our bodies, take our clothes

Bloodless moonlight, may my lady
Give her lovely skin and bones

Midnight, and my bride
Treads in distant water now
Mine are sinning hands
And my teeth have fallen out

The river still may rise
Though it took more than it gave
Mine are sinning hands
On a broken windowpane

Bloodless moonlight, like my lady
Gave me only skin and bones

Give me your hand
The dog in the garden row is covered in mud
And dragging your mother’s clothes
Cinder and smoke
The snake in the basement
Found the juniper shade
The farmhouse is burning down

Give me your hand
And take what you will tonight, I'll give it as fast
And high as the flame will rise
Cinder and smoke
Some whispers around the trees
The juniper bends
As if you were listening

Give me your hand
Your mother is drunk as all the firemen shake
A photo from father’s arms
Cinder and smoke
You’ll ask me to pray for rain
With ash in your mouth
You’ll ask it to burn again

“Take me again," she said, thinking of him
“To the pond with the swans and the swimming"
Far from his room the familiar perfume
How it left her aware she was naked

The lesson she learned when her memory serves
Is to marvel with love at the sunset
And walking away at the dark end of day
She will measure and break like a habit

Oh, how the rain sounds as loud as a lover’s words
And now and again she’s afraid when the sun returns

“Take me again,” she said, thinking of him
“I don’t care for this careful behavior”
A brush through her hair, children kissing upstairs
Keeps her up with her want for her savior

The sun on the sand, on her knees and her hands
As she begs for her fish from the water
But turned them away, she’s a whip and a slave
Given time she may find something better

When the men take me to the devil tree
I will be free and shining like before
Papa dont tell me what I should've done
She's the one who begged me
"Take me home"

When the wind wraps me like the reaper's hand
I will swing free until they cut me down
Papa dont tell me what I could've done
She's the one who begged me
"Take me home"

When the sea takes me like my mother's arms
I will breathe free as any word of God
Papa dont tell me what you would've done
She's the one who begged me
"Take me home"

He kissed her once as she leaned on the windowsill
She'll never love him but knows that her father will
Her fallen fruit is all rotten in the middle
But her breast never dries when he's hungry

The money came and she died in her rocking chair
The window wide and the rain in her braided hair
A letter locked in the pattern of her knuckle
Like a hymn to the house she was making

Blind and whistling just around the corner
And there's a wind that is whispering something
Strong as hell but not hickory rooted

She kissed him once cause he gave her a cigarette
And turned around but he waits like a turned down bed
And summer left like her walking with another
And a sound of a church bell ringing

The money came and he died like a butterfly
A buried star in the haze of the city lights
A gun went off and a mother dropped her baby
On the blue feathered wing - we were lucky

Blind and whistling just around the corner
And there's a wind that is whispering something
Strong as hell but not hickory rooted